Whiskey Media
Encyclopedia
Whiskey Media is an independent American
online
media
company founded by CNET
co-founder Shelby Bonnie. It is the parent company
of Giant Bomb
, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened. Whiskey Media websites are wiki
community based, while maintaining an editorial staff. The company's target demographic are focused primarily on males between 10 to 30. The name "Whiskey Media" is a reference to a Kentucky distillery that was owned by the family of Shelby Bonnie before prohibition
. Whiskey Media operates in San Francisco, California
, after previously being located in Sausalito
.
in 2006, a website he co-founded in 1994. Joining Bonnie and business partner Mike Tatum were former CNET programmers Andy McCurdy, Sean Coonce, Ethan Lance and Dave Snider. Lance and Snider at the time were running their own joint venture known as Enemy Kite, in which they had created Comic Vine. Comic Vine would become the first Whiskey Media website, complete with a full conversion from the PHP
format to Whiskey Media's de facto framework, Django.
Later in the year Jeff Gerstmann
also left CNET after being controversially fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot
. This began a chain reaction in which Ryan Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella would leave after the incident. This lead to Whiskey Media and Gerstmann getting in touch with each other and with Ryan Davis they created the video game website, Giant Bomb
, of which Caravella, Shoemaker and Navarro now all work for.
Giant Bomb and subsequent websites, Anime Vice (launched in 2008), Tested and Screened (both launched in 2010) were designed around the same "social publishing" concept as Comic Vine, content created by tech-savvy communities, while being run by small teams of editorial staff, video producers and engineers. In an interview with The New York Times
, Bonnie explained that creating a small staffed company as opposed to CNET was a, "great constraint that forces us to do smart stuff." When asked why they didn't go down the route of blog sites such as Joystiq
or Engadget
, Bonnie said that , "what blogs figured out was how to create a scalable inexpensive model, but there is not a shelf space for content. Content is hard to organize and it is hard to be a reference. If you think about how you create a community, you have to create anchors for community to congregate around."
At the end of 2009 Whiskey Media raised $2.5 million in funding. Paid member subscriptions were made available in 2010, one of the benefits being that paid members would view no advertisements in the future. For the majority of 2008 through 2010, Whiskey Media websites featured very little advertisements, being against cost per mille
advertising and also with Mike Tatum noting that they have been, "incredibly lucky to have had the directive to focus completely on our product over the last few years." Tatum announced that advertisements would take a more prominent role on Whiskey Media websites in 2011.
In addition to regular advertising, the websites have been shown to utilize their wiki-databases and the social gaming Quest system to incorporate advertisements that "don't disrupt the audience experience."
technical support
company. In June 2010 it was announced that Whiskey Media had entered into a mutually beneficial ad sales partnership with Six Apart
.
The technology that runs Giant Bomb, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened includes the web framework Django, the database management system
PostgreSQL
, Solr, and MooTools
, a JavaScript
framework. To track site metric
s on video-viewing, or wiki and trivia submissions, the Whiskey Media developers created a set of analytical tools known as "Metrimatics". It allows the staff to track daily "how well [the] publishing platform and content is resonating with each brand’s audience."
Whiskey Media is also a user of the Cloud-based video encoding system, Zencoder
. Andy McCurdy cited its batch processing
functionality "which encoded more than two terabytes of our back catalog" in 720p
high definition
in under two hours.
are rare. One such occurrence was the 'Big Live LIVE Show: Live!', a live streaming event that lasted seven hours, showcasing video content in order to promote the launch of paid memberships.
Giant Bomb
is the video game-focused website, launched in blog
-form on March 6, 2008 and in its complete form on July 21, 2008.
Due to the circumstances surrounding its creation and the way it is run, it has gained a reputation as a website that is less business-like and more focused around fun. Its creation came about following the firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot and many of its staff leaving in turn. Of those, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella joined Gerstmann to create Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb's launch was chronicled by the How to Build a Bomb series, in which Davis and Gerstmann detailed the first weeks of turning an empty white room into an office.
Giant Bomb soon became notable for its podcast
, the "Giant Bombcast" as well as several of the video series they produce, including Quick Looks, the Persona 4 Endurance Run and the This Ain't No Game feature. The Giant Bombcast has over one-hundred thousand downloads weekly, consistently placing it in the top ten most downloaded gaming podcasts globally on iTunes
. Quick Looks are unedited videos of two or more staff members playing through a fifteen to forty-five minute period of a game, usually at the beginning. Quick Looks are often listed or embeded into other websites, NeoGAF
being one such group who does this. The Persona 4 Endurance Run featured Gerstmann and Caravella playing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
from start to finish, its success gaining the acknowledgement of Atlus USA itself, to which Gerstmann comically thanked them for, "not having [their] legal team get in touch with us." Davis is the presenter on the This Ain't No Game feature, in which he reviews films that are based on video games. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon
commented on Davis's review of Mortal Kombat Annihilation, stating that his overly negative review was still, "a bit too kind to it."
From 2009 Giant Bomb has had several staff additions including former intern Drew Scanlon becoming Video Producer in 2009, Alex Navarro becoming a writer in addition to his work on Screened in April 2010 and Brad Nicholson becoming an external news writer in May 2010. On April 17, 2011, Patrick Klepek was announced as the latest internal staff member, becoming News Editor.
Giant Bomb has continued producing new content, including a multiplayer livestreaming show, Thursday Night Throwdown on Justin.tv, coverage of major video game conventions at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Game Developers Conference (GDC)
and Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)
, a second Endurance Run, a second successful podcast called the Nintendownload X-Press and a game development series called "Building the Bastion" with Super Giant Games, who record the development of the video game Bastion
, much in the same vain as the How to Build a Bomb videos.
Comic Vine is the eldest of the five Whiskey Media websites, and it focuses on comic books. Prior to the creation of Whiskey Media, Dave Snider, Ethan Lance and Tony Guerrero launched ComicVine.com on December 6, 2006. At the time Snider and Lance were creating websites for others as part of the co-founded Enemy Kite while Guerrero was a high-school math teacher. While Snider and Lance built the site Guerrero began to collect data and convert it into what would become the first Whiskey Media wiki-database. With the creation of Whiskey Media, Guerrero was hired full-time to work for the site. In 2009, community member and contributor Sara Lima joined the staff as editor after moving to California.
Comic Vine reviews a wide variety of comics from Marvel
, DC
and independent companies using the zero to five scale with increments of 0.5. Editorial features include Guerrero’s Off My Mind segment, discussing comic book speculation, the ethics, methods and practicalities of superheroes and supervillains and comparisons of current trends, costumes and story arcs with older counterparts. Since August 2009 Lima hosts the weekly Comic Vine podcast in which Lima and Guerrero discuss the biggest comic news, releases and films, often with tested.com comic readers Norman Chan and Ana Hurka-Robles. Notable comic book writer James Robinson is a recurring guest on the podcast, providing a deep insight into DC characters.
Video content is currently focused on discussion and informative pieces. Lima provides updates about the website, the most important articles that have been published during the week and general industry news in the Comic Vine News of the Week. Guerrero informs about characters, lairs and various suits in 3-Minute Expert. Various members of Whiskey Media participate in the Preview Theatre in which characters are voiced as the first half of a comic is shown (with live versions on the Whiskey Media Happy Hour). The latest video addition is a series of panel topic discussions, passing judgement on new comics and story arcs by discussing what has happened in them and how they compare to previous releases. Comic Vine has also established a presence at major comic book conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con and its New York and Long Beach equivalents, interviewing important industry figures such as Stan Lee
(on multiple occasions), Grant Morrison
and Gail Simone
.
Anime Vice was created by the Whiskey Media development team before they had an editorial team. Anime Freelancer Gia Manry was hired as Editor-in-Chief. She brought in Chris Schmitt to help with the news articles and John Martone to the Whiskey Media offices. Together they introduced video features like 3-Minute Expert (which would later also become a feature at Comic Vine) in which Manry would teach users about the various popular aspects of anime, the people who make them and Japanese culture. Trailer Blast, in which Manry, Martone and Video Producer Ana Hurka-Robles watch six trailers, rate them and then choose a favourite for the week. Quick Picks, in which Manry and Martone would list the manga and anime releases for the week, introducing the user-base to manga and anime they may have not seen beforehand. The site also has a video Q+A in which users can find out more about Manry and Martone. Following the success of Comic Vine's Unscripted video reviews Anime Vice also ran some similar Unscripted videos that unlike Comic Vine didn't feature ratings like Comic Vine's 5-star system, the emphasis on what they have to say rather than the score they would give it.
The Anime Vice Squadcast celebrated its one-year anniversary as podcast 52 was released on the 28th of April.
In May 2010, in an effort to make Anime Vice appeal to more casual anime fans and to focus on anime content discussion rather than anime industry news, Manry and Martone were laid-off, prompting a final farewell post by Manry. The Weekly Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach Manga Discussion articles have now been split into three separate discussion articles and Comic Vine contributor Tom Pinchuk's 'What the F@#$ Did I Just Watch?!' segment has now taken a more prominent role on the site. With Manry now writing the news articles previously written at Anime Vice at her own personal website, Hurka-Robles now producing video content for the other Whiskey Media brands and without an editorial team there is no video content or any podcasts produced at the moment. Schmitt continues to write news and reviews for the site while Pinchuk has introduced a new Nonsense from the noob segment.
Making the move from Maximum PC
, Will Smith and Norman Chan joined Whiskey Media to launch Tested.com. This move will allow Smith and Chan to create content for all forms of technology
, rather than being limited to Personal computer
s. Tested launched in preview form on March 8, 2010. While in its preview-form Tested doesn't yet have the community-themed Wiki-Database system that its sister-sites feature but features full editorial content including videos reviews and a podcast of which English screenwriter
and former PC Gamer
Editor-in-chief Gary Whitta
is a weekly guest.
Staying true to their word, Tested has provided videos and articles on many forms of technology, with extensive coverage of the Apple iPad
, e-book
readers and the testing of various devices' wireless internet speeds throughout San Francisco. Tested also has freelance contributors Ryan Whitwam, Will Greenwald, Sam Cook, Wesley Fenlon, Bobby Schweizer, and Matt Braga who are responsible for articles detailing news and analysis in subjects like netbooks, web browser
software, photo enhancing systems, smartphones, and 3D imagery and functionality.
Tested is recognised as a supporter of MakerBot Industries
, using their CupCake Computer numerical control model to make mystery object videos and interviewing founder Bre Pettis
on new models at conventions. In one of his many appearances on Revision3's video podcast
Tekzilla
, Smith showcased the CupCake to presenter Patrick Norton
. Other appearances have included discussions on different iPad browsers with Veronica Belmont
featuring the Skyfire web browser. Computer numerical control was also the subject of Tested: The Show episode 1. In the episode, Smith and Chan visited TechShop
and built their new mystery object show maker, the MakerBot Thing-o-Matic.
Tested covers the San Francisco Bay Area version of the Maker Faire
. Previous interviews include the Raygun Gothic
Rocketship and the Mondo Spider
.
Screened is a movie- and television
-themed website. Its existence was leaked on the Tested account of Whiskey Media Engineer Sean Coonce in April 2010. Prior to its launch it was confirmed on the 11th of May edition of the Giant Bombcast that former GameSpot
Editors Alex Navarro and Matthew Rorie would be joining their Giant Bomb friends at Whiskey Media as the Editors of Screened. In April 2011 Navarro announced his move to New York, remaining as a writer for both Screened and Giant Bomb.
Screened launched on the 12th of May 2010. In preparation for the site launch, several articles and videos were already uploaded, ready to be accessed by the user-base. They included the It Came from my Instant Queue segment and the weekly DVD Release List as well as news featuring a potential Bad Boys 3 movie and plans for Transformers 3. Several trailers are on the site as well as the inaugural Worse or Worser video in which Navarro and Rorie debate whether Lethal Weapon 3
or Lethal Weapon 4
is the worst of the two. Also included at launch was the first Behind the Screened Door podcast, featuring Navarro, Rorie, intern Matt Lopez and Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis.
Current video features include The Besties, Screened's hall of fame, Defending Your Movie, a series to showcase movies that may have not gained critical or commercial success, but have aspects that make them worth watching, and Remake Rematch, pitting one or more remakes against their respective originals.
Screened also has articles by freelance writers such as Tom Pinchuk's recurring Welcome To Weird, which range from body horror
films like Videodrome
to Japanese TV advertisements starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
. and Serious About Series, analysing big budget franchises.
With Screened came an upgraded version of the wiki-database system commonly seen throughout its sister-sites. Users who have gained one-thousand wiki points or more on either Giant Bomb, Comic Vine or Anime Vice (therefore allowing them to by-pass wiki-entry moderation) are automatically given one-thousand points on Screened in order to promote high quality entry submitting into the database as soon as possible as well as lightening the load on the Screened wiki-moderators.
The content ranged from live versions of Giant Bomb's Quick Looks, comedic Mystery Science Theater 3000
style commentary of lesser known films with Screened, Tested's As Seen on TV
product testing segments and Comic Vine's multiple interviews with cosplayers and industry figures. Some of these segments would be carried over into Whiskey Media's Friday live show, The Whiskey Media Happy Hour.
The live shows featured guests including Eric Pope and John Drake from Harmonix, 11-stringed base guitarist Jean Baudin, DC Comics
writers James Robinson
and Geoff Johns
, and Capcom
's Seth Killian.
A new song from Buckner & Garcia
that was based on Giant Bomb was revealed during the second annual Big Live Live Show: Live!
-database
in which registered users can freely edit. A point scoring system is in place for editing and adding images to a page, 1000 points will allow you to edit pages without the approval of the wiki-moderators. For 5000 points you will be able to by-pass moderation when creating pages. Each brand has customised sections in their respective databases, ranging from videogames
franchises
, anime
series, comics
characters, and movie clichés. Each entry into the databases has its own forum
, allowing users to post specifically about subjects without threads being lost in the vast vacuum of forum activity. Each wiki-database page can have trivia questions added to it by users. Moderators can highlight specific database pages that need attention by placing a bounty on them. The bounty points are added on top of the wiki points users gain just from editing. Pages that have bounties placed on are labelled with the changes that are needed. They range from filling in an otherwise empty page, better page formatting, improving upon stale content, changing subjective content and removing unnecessary character, object, concept and location associations.
In August 2010 Whiskey Media launched an advertising campaign
with Best Buy
using an additional quest set. This was to promote Best Buy's Next Class of laptops for students, utilizing both Whiskey Media's and the Next Class's demographic. Their second advertisement quest set, during July 2011, was in association with Turner Broadcasting System
's Adult Swim
, promoting the NTSF:SD:SUV:: (National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle::) show. The final quest involved users watching a NTSF:SD:SUV:: live stream viewing party, featuring an interview with Paul Scheer
.
feeds for each user, the ability to create lists using everything from the wiki-databases, users reviews and details of all relevant quests, trivia and wiki-database points. Syncing accounts with Social media
websites Facebook
and Twitter
is also available. A universal log-in for users with accounts on more than one Whiskey Media website is now available.
Free members are able to do everything as listed in the community features from creating lists, blogs and contributing to the wiki-databases. The paid subscription service includes HD Video that is available in streaming, progressive or download, HTML5-based mobile sites and access to a live friday show.
Users who choose to pay per-annum will receive everything that is included in the Monthly subscription service plus no viewable advertisements and a custom T-Shirt.
The Friday show, dubbed the "Whiskey Media Happy Hour" features editorial and behind the scenes staff from the brands. It features news on travelling assignments editoral members have made as well as shorter versions of Big Live Live Show: Live! segments.
as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011. Jacob Kaplan-Moss hailed Whiskey Media for their "commitment to helping Django thrive." Whiskey Media's method of content created by its users through community tools has been praised for the way it "increases the popularity of the site[s] and gives the business more potential revenue."
The Big Live Live Show: Live! was considered "a labor of love from the whole Whiskey Media family and for the price of free [...] there’s not too much to complain about here."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
company founded by CNET
CNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...
co-founder Shelby Bonnie. It is the parent company
Parent company
A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company...
of Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened. Whiskey Media websites are wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
community based, while maintaining an editorial staff. The company's target demographic are focused primarily on males between 10 to 30. The name "Whiskey Media" is a reference to a Kentucky distillery that was owned by the family of Shelby Bonnie before prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
. Whiskey Media operates in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, after previously being located in Sausalito
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
.
History
Whiskey Media was created in 2007, after Shelby Bonnie resigned as the CEO of CNETCNET
CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...
in 2006, a website he co-founded in 1994. Joining Bonnie and business partner Mike Tatum were former CNET programmers Andy McCurdy, Sean Coonce, Ethan Lance and Dave Snider. Lance and Snider at the time were running their own joint venture known as Enemy Kite, in which they had created Comic Vine. Comic Vine would become the first Whiskey Media website, complete with a full conversion from the PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
format to Whiskey Media's de facto framework, Django.
Later in the year Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann is an American video game journalist and former editorial director of the gaming website GameSpot and the founder of the gaming website Giant Bomb. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot when GameSpot separated PC and console games into...
also left CNET after being controversially fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
. This began a chain reaction in which Ryan Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella would leave after the incident. This lead to Whiskey Media and Gerstmann getting in touch with each other and with Ryan Davis they created the video game website, Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
, of which Caravella, Shoemaker and Navarro now all work for.
Giant Bomb and subsequent websites, Anime Vice (launched in 2008), Tested and Screened (both launched in 2010) were designed around the same "social publishing" concept as Comic Vine, content created by tech-savvy communities, while being run by small teams of editorial staff, video producers and engineers. In an interview with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Bonnie explained that creating a small staffed company as opposed to CNET was a, "great constraint that forces us to do smart stuff." When asked why they didn't go down the route of blog sites such as Joystiq
Joystiq
Joystiq is a video gaming blog founded in June 2004 that has since become one of the most successful sites within the Weblogs, Inc. family of weblogs. It is the centerpiece of WIN's own network of video gaming blogs, which also includes a blog dealing specifically with the popular MMORPG World of...
or Engadget
Engadget
Engadget is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. Though on appearance Engadget functions much like a blog and may be defined as such, much of its editorial content takes the form of an online magazine...
, Bonnie said that , "what blogs figured out was how to create a scalable inexpensive model, but there is not a shelf space for content. Content is hard to organize and it is hard to be a reference. If you think about how you create a community, you have to create anchors for community to congregate around."
At the end of 2009 Whiskey Media raised $2.5 million in funding. Paid member subscriptions were made available in 2010, one of the benefits being that paid members would view no advertisements in the future. For the majority of 2008 through 2010, Whiskey Media websites featured very little advertisements, being against cost per mille
Cost Per Mille
Cost per mille , also called cost ‰ and cost per thousand , is a commonly used measurement in advertising. Radio, television, newspaper, magazine, out-of-home advertising, and online advertising can be purchased on the basis of what it costs to show the ad to one thousand viewers...
advertising and also with Mike Tatum noting that they have been, "incredibly lucky to have had the directive to focus completely on our product over the last few years." Tatum announced that advertisements would take a more prominent role on Whiskey Media websites in 2011.
In addition to regular advertising, the websites have been shown to utilize their wiki-databases and the social gaming Quest system to incorporate advertisements that "don't disrupt the audience experience."
Partnerships
From March 2008 to March 2009 Django co-creator Jacob Kaplan-Moss worked for Whiskey Media as 'software architect.' Whiskey Media then became his first client in his new job at Revolution Systems, an open-source softwareOpen-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
technical support
Technical support
Technical support or tech support refers to a range of services by which enterprises provide assistance to users of technology products such as mobile phones, televisions, computers, software products or other electronic or mechanical goods...
company. In June 2010 it was announced that Whiskey Media had entered into a mutually beneficial ad sales partnership with Six Apart
Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the Movable Type blogware, TypePad blog hosting service, and Vox. The company also is the former owner of LiveJournal. Six Apart is headquartered in Tokyo and is planning to open a new, U.S.-based office in New York...
.
Development
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Shelby Bonnie | Founder |
| Andy McCurdy | Lead Engineer |
| Sean Coonce | Engineer |
| Dave Snider | Design and Production |
| Ethan Lance | Product Management and JavaScript Development |
| Mike Tatum | Business Contact |
| Melissa Durkin | Office Manager |
| Daniel Miesner | Marketing Manager |
| Mike Horn | Front-End Engineer |
| Honza Král | Software Engineer |
| Kat Smith | Lead Illustrator and Artist |
| Alexis Gallisá | Design and Production |
The technology that runs Giant Bomb, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened includes the web framework Django, the database management system
Database management system
A database management system is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators and other specialists. A database is an integrated...
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
, Solr, and MooTools
MooTools
MooTools is a lightweight, object-oriented, web-application framework for JavaScript, written in JavaScript. It is released under the free, open-source MIT License...
, a JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
framework. To track site metric
Software metric
A software metric is a measure of some property of a piece of software or its specifications. Since quantitative measurements are essential in all sciences, there is a continuous effort by computer science practitioners and theoreticians to bring similar approaches to software development...
s on video-viewing, or wiki and trivia submissions, the Whiskey Media developers created a set of analytical tools known as "Metrimatics". It allows the staff to track daily "how well [the] publishing platform and content is resonating with each brand’s audience."
Whiskey Media is also a user of the Cloud-based video encoding system, Zencoder
Zencoder
Founded in 2007 by Jonathan Dahl, and built by Slantwise Design and Sevenwire, Zencoder is a distributed multimedia processing system for websites that allow users to upload video. Zencoder was built with Ruby on Rails and provides a REST API for creating new transcoding jobs...
. Andy McCurdy cited its batch processing
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
functionality "which encoded more than two terabytes of our back catalog" in 720p
720p
720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan...
high definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
in under two hours.
Websites
Whiskey Media currently has five websites that focus on video games, technology, comics, anime and manga and movies. Founder Shelby Bonnie has mentioned that two more sites are in the works, originally aiming to launch before the end of 2010. Occasionally staff will appear in content on other Whiskey Media websites, whereas full-scale collaborationsare rare. One such occurrence was the 'Big Live LIVE Show: Live!', a live streaming event that lasted seven hours, showcasing video content in order to promote the launch of paid memberships.
Giant Bomb
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Jeff Gerstmann Jeff Gerstmann Jeff Gerstmann is an American video game journalist and former editorial director of the gaming website GameSpot and the founder of the gaming website Giant Bomb. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot when GameSpot separated PC and console games into... |
Co-Creator |
| Ryan Davis | Co-Creator |
| Brad Shoemaker | Editor |
| Vincent Caravella | Editor and Video Producer |
| Drew Scanlon | Video Producer |
| Patrick Klepek | News Editor |
| Alex Navarro | Writer |
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb
Giant Bomb is an American video game website and wiki that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media...
is the video game-focused website, launched in blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
-form on March 6, 2008 and in its complete form on July 21, 2008.
Due to the circumstances surrounding its creation and the way it is run, it has gained a reputation as a website that is less business-like and more focused around fun. Its creation came about following the firing of Jeff Gerstmann from GameSpot and many of its staff leaving in turn. Of those, Ryan Davis, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella joined Gerstmann to create Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb's launch was chronicled by the How to Build a Bomb series, in which Davis and Gerstmann detailed the first weeks of turning an empty white room into an office.
Giant Bomb soon became notable for its podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
, the "Giant Bombcast" as well as several of the video series they produce, including Quick Looks, the Persona 4 Endurance Run and the This Ain't No Game feature. The Giant Bombcast has over one-hundred thousand downloads weekly, consistently placing it in the top ten most downloaded gaming podcasts globally on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
. Quick Looks are unedited videos of two or more staff members playing through a fifteen to forty-five minute period of a game, usually at the beginning. Quick Looks are often listed or embeded into other websites, NeoGAF
NeoGAF
NeoGAF is an internet forum that discusses video games, founded as an adjunct to , a video game news site. Since April 4, 2006, the site has been independently hosted and administered....
being one such group who does this. The Persona 4 Endurance Run featured Gerstmann and Caravella playing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, originally released in Japan as simply , is a role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North...
from start to finish, its success gaining the acknowledgement of Atlus USA itself, to which Gerstmann comically thanked them for, "not having [their] legal team get in touch with us." Davis is the presenter on the This Ain't No Game feature, in which he reviews films that are based on video games. Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon
Ed Boon
Edward J. Boon is an American video game programmer who had been employed for over 15 years at Midway. He now works for Warner Bros...
commented on Davis's review of Mortal Kombat Annihilation, stating that his overly negative review was still, "a bit too kind to it."
From 2009 Giant Bomb has had several staff additions including former intern Drew Scanlon becoming Video Producer in 2009, Alex Navarro becoming a writer in addition to his work on Screened in April 2010 and Brad Nicholson becoming an external news writer in May 2010. On April 17, 2011, Patrick Klepek was announced as the latest internal staff member, becoming News Editor.
Giant Bomb has continued producing new content, including a multiplayer livestreaming show, Thursday Night Throwdown on Justin.tv, coverage of major video game conventions at Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Game Developers Conference (GDC)
Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking...
and Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)
Penny Arcade Expo
The Penny Arcade Expo is a semi-annual gamer festival held in Seattle and Boston. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop...
, a second Endurance Run, a second successful podcast called the Nintendownload X-Press and a game development series called "Building the Bastion" with Super Giant Games, who record the development of the video game Bastion
Bastion (video game)
Bastion is an action role-playing video game produced by independent developer Supergiant Games and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The game's visual style is inspired by anime and its narrative style takes the form of a dynamic voice-over...
, much in the same vain as the How to Build a Bomb videos.
Comic Vine
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Dave Snider | Co-Creator |
| Ethan Lance | Co-Creator |
| Tony Guerrero | Co-Creator |
| Sara Lima | Editor |
Comic Vine is the eldest of the five Whiskey Media websites, and it focuses on comic books. Prior to the creation of Whiskey Media, Dave Snider, Ethan Lance and Tony Guerrero launched ComicVine.com on December 6, 2006. At the time Snider and Lance were creating websites for others as part of the co-founded Enemy Kite while Guerrero was a high-school math teacher. While Snider and Lance built the site Guerrero began to collect data and convert it into what would become the first Whiskey Media wiki-database. With the creation of Whiskey Media, Guerrero was hired full-time to work for the site. In 2009, community member and contributor Sara Lima joined the staff as editor after moving to California.
Comic Vine reviews a wide variety of comics from Marvel
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
, DC
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
and independent companies using the zero to five scale with increments of 0.5. Editorial features include Guerrero’s Off My Mind segment, discussing comic book speculation, the ethics, methods and practicalities of superheroes and supervillains and comparisons of current trends, costumes and story arcs with older counterparts. Since August 2009 Lima hosts the weekly Comic Vine podcast in which Lima and Guerrero discuss the biggest comic news, releases and films, often with tested.com comic readers Norman Chan and Ana Hurka-Robles. Notable comic book writer James Robinson is a recurring guest on the podcast, providing a deep insight into DC characters.
Video content is currently focused on discussion and informative pieces. Lima provides updates about the website, the most important articles that have been published during the week and general industry news in the Comic Vine News of the Week. Guerrero informs about characters, lairs and various suits in 3-Minute Expert. Various members of Whiskey Media participate in the Preview Theatre in which characters are voiced as the first half of a comic is shown (with live versions on the Whiskey Media Happy Hour). The latest video addition is a series of panel topic discussions, passing judgement on new comics and story arcs by discussing what has happened in them and how they compare to previous releases. Comic Vine has also established a presence at major comic book conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con and its New York and Long Beach equivalents, interviewing important industry figures such as Stan Lee
Stan Lee
Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, television personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics....
(on multiple occasions), Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...
and Gail Simone
Gail Simone
Gail Simone is an American writer of comic books. Best known for penning DC's Birds of Prey, her other notable works include Secret Six, Welcome to Tranquility, The All-New Atom, and Deadpool. In 2007, she took over Wonder Woman...
.
Anime Vice
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Chris Schmitt | Acting Editor |
| Tom Pinchuk | Acting Editor |
Anime Vice was created by the Whiskey Media development team before they had an editorial team. Anime Freelancer Gia Manry was hired as Editor-in-Chief. She brought in Chris Schmitt to help with the news articles and John Martone to the Whiskey Media offices. Together they introduced video features like 3-Minute Expert (which would later also become a feature at Comic Vine) in which Manry would teach users about the various popular aspects of anime, the people who make them and Japanese culture. Trailer Blast, in which Manry, Martone and Video Producer Ana Hurka-Robles watch six trailers, rate them and then choose a favourite for the week. Quick Picks, in which Manry and Martone would list the manga and anime releases for the week, introducing the user-base to manga and anime they may have not seen beforehand. The site also has a video Q+A in which users can find out more about Manry and Martone. Following the success of Comic Vine's Unscripted video reviews Anime Vice also ran some similar Unscripted videos that unlike Comic Vine didn't feature ratings like Comic Vine's 5-star system, the emphasis on what they have to say rather than the score they would give it.
The Anime Vice Squadcast celebrated its one-year anniversary as podcast 52 was released on the 28th of April.
In May 2010, in an effort to make Anime Vice appeal to more casual anime fans and to focus on anime content discussion rather than anime industry news, Manry and Martone were laid-off, prompting a final farewell post by Manry. The Weekly Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach Manga Discussion articles have now been split into three separate discussion articles and Comic Vine contributor Tom Pinchuk's 'What the F@#$ Did I Just Watch?!' segment has now taken a more prominent role on the site. With Manry now writing the news articles previously written at Anime Vice at her own personal website, Hurka-Robles now producing video content for the other Whiskey Media brands and without an editorial team there is no video content or any podcasts produced at the moment. Schmitt continues to write news and reviews for the site while Pinchuk has introduced a new Nonsense from the noob segment.
Tested
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Will Smith | Editor |
| Norman Chan | Editor |
| Ana Hurka-Robles | Video Producer |
Making the move from Maximum PC
Maximum PC
Maximum PC, formerly known as boot, is an American magazine and web site published by Future US. It focuses on cutting-edge PC hardware, with an emphasis on product reviews, step-by-step tutorials, and in-depth technical briefs...
, Will Smith and Norman Chan joined Whiskey Media to launch Tested.com. This move will allow Smith and Chan to create content for all forms of technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
, rather than being limited to Personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s. Tested launched in preview form on March 8, 2010. While in its preview-form Tested doesn't yet have the community-themed Wiki-Database system that its sister-sites feature but features full editorial content including videos reviews and a podcast of which English screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
and former PC Gamer
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
Editor-in-chief Gary Whitta
Gary Whitta
Gary Whitta is an English screenwriter, author, game designer, and video games journalist. He is known as the former editor-in-chief of both the UK and US editions of PC Gamer magazine and contributor to gaming magazine, ACE....
is a weekly guest.
Staying true to their word, Tested has provided videos and articles on many forms of technology, with extensive coverage of the Apple iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
, e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
readers and the testing of various devices' wireless internet speeds throughout San Francisco. Tested also has freelance contributors Ryan Whitwam, Will Greenwald, Sam Cook, Wesley Fenlon, Bobby Schweizer, and Matt Braga who are responsible for articles detailing news and analysis in subjects like netbooks, web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
software, photo enhancing systems, smartphones, and 3D imagery and functionality.
Tested is recognised as a supporter of MakerBot Industries
MakerBot Industries
MakerBot Industries is a Brooklyn, New York-based company founded in January 2009 by Bre Pettis, Adam Mayer, and Zach "Hoeken" Smith producing open source hardware, specifically 3D printers...
, using their CupCake Computer numerical control model to make mystery object videos and interviewing founder Bre Pettis
Bre Pettis
Bre Pettis is an entrepreneur, video blogger and multi-artist. He is also known for DIY video podcasts for MAKE, and for the History Hacker pilot on the History Channel. He is one of the founders of the Brooklyn-based hacker space NYC Resistor.Pettis is a co-founder and the CEO of MakerBot...
on new models at conventions. In one of his many appearances on Revision3's video podcast
Video podcast
Video podcast is a term used for the online delivery of video on demand video clip content via Atom or RSS enclosures...
Tekzilla
Tekzilla
Tekzilla is a biweekly video podcast on the Revision3 network. It is currently hosted by Patrick Norton, Veronica Belmont and Robert Heron with Garnett Lee and Roger Chang as frequent guest hosts...
, Smith showcased the CupCake to presenter Patrick Norton
Patrick Norton
Patrick Norton is most commonly known as the former co-host and managing editor of The Screen Savers, an interactive television program on TechTV geared toward the technology enthusiast...
. Other appearances have included discussions on different iPad browsers with Veronica Belmont
Veronica Belmont
Veronica Ann Belmont is the co-host of the Revision3 show Tekzilla alongside Patrick Norton, and the former host of the monthly PlayStation 3-based video on demand program Qore. Formerly she was the host for the Mahalo Daily podcast and a producer and associate editor for CNET Networks, Inc...
featuring the Skyfire web browser. Computer numerical control was also the subject of Tested: The Show episode 1. In the episode, Smith and Chan visited TechShop
TechShop
TechShop is a chain of member-based workshops that lets people of all skill levels come in and use industrial tools and equipment to build their own projects...
and built their new mystery object show maker, the MakerBot Thing-o-Matic.
Tested covers the San Francisco Bay Area version of the Maker Faire
Maker Faire
Maker Faire is an event created by Make magazine to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself mindset".-Past events:The first was held April 22 – 23, 2006, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds...
. Previous interviews include the Raygun Gothic
Raygun Gothic
Raygun Gothic is a catchall term for a visual style that incorporates various aspects of the Googie, Streamline Moderne and Art Deco architectural styles when applied to retro-futuristic science fiction environments. Academic Lance Olsen has characterised Raygun Gothic as "a tomorrow that never was"...
Rocketship and the Mondo Spider
Mondo spider
The Mondo Spider is a ride-on walking robot propelled via eight steel legs in a walking motion utilizing the Klann Linkage.It was designed and built in 2005 and 2006 by Leigh Christie, Jonathan Tippet, Charlie Brison, Alex Mossman, Dillard Brinson, Sam Meyer and Ryan Johnston...
.
Screened
| Member | Position |
|---|---|
| Matthew Rorie | Editor |
| Alex Navarro | Writer |
| Joey Fameli | Video Producer |
Screened is a movie- and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
-themed website. Its existence was leaked on the Tested account of Whiskey Media Engineer Sean Coonce in April 2010. Prior to its launch it was confirmed on the 11th of May edition of the Giant Bombcast that former GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
Editors Alex Navarro and Matthew Rorie would be joining their Giant Bomb friends at Whiskey Media as the Editors of Screened. In April 2011 Navarro announced his move to New York, remaining as a writer for both Screened and Giant Bomb.
Screened launched on the 12th of May 2010. In preparation for the site launch, several articles and videos were already uploaded, ready to be accessed by the user-base. They included the It Came from my Instant Queue segment and the weekly DVD Release List as well as news featuring a potential Bad Boys 3 movie and plans for Transformers 3. Several trailers are on the site as well as the inaugural Worse or Worser video in which Navarro and Rorie debate whether Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 3
Lethal Weapon 3 is a 1992 American action film directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo and Stuart Wilson. It is a sequel to Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2, and it is part of the Lethal Weapon film series.The movie is set in 1992, six years after...
or Lethal Weapon 4
Lethal Weapon 4
Lethal Weapon 4 is a 1998 American action film directed by Richard Donner, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock and Jet Li. It is the third sequel in the Lethal Weapon series of films. -Plot:...
is the worst of the two. Also included at launch was the first Behind the Screened Door podcast, featuring Navarro, Rorie, intern Matt Lopez and Giant Bomb's Ryan Davis.
Current video features include The Besties, Screened's hall of fame, Defending Your Movie, a series to showcase movies that may have not gained critical or commercial success, but have aspects that make them worth watching, and Remake Rematch, pitting one or more remakes against their respective originals.
Screened also has articles by freelance writers such as Tom Pinchuk's recurring Welcome To Weird, which range from body horror
Body horror
Body horror, biological horror, organic horror or venereal horror is horror fiction in which the horror is principally derived from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body. Such works may deal with disease, decay, parasitism, mutilation, or mutation...
films like Videodrome
Videodrome
Videodrome is a 1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and singer Deborah Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring...
to Japanese TV advertisements starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
. and Serious About Series, analysing big budget franchises.
With Screened came an upgraded version of the wiki-database system commonly seen throughout its sister-sites. Users who have gained one-thousand wiki points or more on either Giant Bomb, Comic Vine or Anime Vice (therefore allowing them to by-pass wiki-entry moderation) are automatically given one-thousand points on Screened in order to promote high quality entry submitting into the database as soon as possible as well as lightening the load on the Screened wiki-moderators.
The Big Live Live Show: Live!
Originally announced on August 19th, The Big Live Live Show Live! is Whiskey Media's annual eight hour live streaming event each September, featuring the Whiskey Media websites (excluding Anime Vice). The event was created to showcase each website and detail Whiskey Media's premium membership service.The content ranged from live versions of Giant Bomb's Quick Looks, comedic Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
style commentary of lesser known films with Screened, Tested's As Seen on TV
As seen on TV
As seen on TV is a nameplate for products advertised on television in the United States for direct-response mail-order through a toll-free telephone number. Typically the packaging for these items includes a standardized red seal in the shape of a CRT television screen with the words "AS SEEN ON...
product testing segments and Comic Vine's multiple interviews with cosplayers and industry figures. Some of these segments would be carried over into Whiskey Media's Friday live show, The Whiskey Media Happy Hour.
The live shows featured guests including Eric Pope and John Drake from Harmonix, 11-stringed base guitarist Jean Baudin, DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
writers James Robinson
James Robinson
James Robinson, Jim Robinson, Jimmy Robinson or Jamie Robinson may refer to:-Public officials:*James W. Robinson James Robinson, Jim Robinson, Jimmy Robinson or Jamie Robinson may refer to:-Public officials:*James W. Robinson (Texas and California) James Robinson, Jim Robinson, Jimmy Robinson or...
and Geoff Johns
Geoff Johns
Geoff Johns is an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics, where he has been Chief Creative Officer since February 2010, in particular for characters such as Green Lantern, The Flash and Superman...
, and Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
's Seth Killian.
A new song from Buckner & Garcia
Buckner & Garcia
Buckner & Garcia was a duo consisting of Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia from Akron, Ohio. Their first collaboration was in 1980, when they wrote a novelty Christmas song, "Merry Christmas in the NFL", imagining Howard Cosell as Santa Claus...
that was based on Giant Bomb was revealed during the second annual Big Live Live Show: Live!
Community tools and interaction
All Whiskey Media websites have an emphasise on small editorial teams with a large amount of community content creation. To this end, many ways to interact with the brands have been applied to the respective websites for each user-base to use.Wiki-database
With the exception of Tested, all Whiskey Media sites have a wikiWiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
-database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
in which registered users can freely edit. A point scoring system is in place for editing and adding images to a page, 1000 points will allow you to edit pages without the approval of the wiki-moderators. For 5000 points you will be able to by-pass moderation when creating pages. Each brand has customised sections in their respective databases, ranging from videogames
VideoGames
VideoGames may refer to:*VideoGames, a mid-1990s magazine about video games.*Video games in general....
franchises
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
, anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
series, comics
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
characters, and movie clichés. Each entry into the databases has its own forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, allowing users to post specifically about subjects without threads being lost in the vast vacuum of forum activity. Each wiki-database page can have trivia questions added to it by users. Moderators can highlight specific database pages that need attention by placing a bounty on them. The bounty points are added on top of the wiki points users gain just from editing. Pages that have bounties placed on are labelled with the changes that are needed. They range from filling in an otherwise empty page, better page formatting, improving upon stale content, changing subjective content and removing unnecessary character, object, concept and location associations.
Quests
Described as "social gaming experiences that give users incentives to create more content and engage with brands," Quests allow users to gain experience and level-up by doing things as simple as posting a blog or making a list. The quests with a larger amount of points give hints towards wiki-database pages that users must find like "goofy scavenger hunt tasks."In August 2010 Whiskey Media launched an advertising campaign
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
with Best Buy
Best Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...
using an additional quest set. This was to promote Best Buy's Next Class of laptops for students, utilizing both Whiskey Media's and the Next Class's demographic. Their second advertisement quest set, during July 2011, was in association with Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...
's Adult Swim
Adult Swim
Adult Swim is an adult-oriented Cable network that shares channel space with Cartoon Network from 9:00 pm until 6:00 am ET/PT in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand...
, promoting the NTSF:SD:SUV:: (National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle::) show. The final quest involved users watching a NTSF:SD:SUV:: live stream viewing party, featuring an interview with Paul Scheer
Paul Scheer
Paul Christian Scheer is an American comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He co-created and starred in MTV's sketch comedy series Human Giant and currently co-stars as Andre on the FX comedy The League. He also currently stars as Trent Hauser on the Adult Swim show NTSF:SD:SUV:: which he created...
.
Guides
Using an upgraded format from traditional text-based FAQs that allows users to "add images, video & tables into our advanced editor that builds a table of contents for you on the fly", the guides on Giant Bomb allow FAQs to be created that detail cheats, in-game achievements, quests and entire games.Profiles
Registered user accounts feature blogs complete with RSSRSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
feeds for each user, the ability to create lists using everything from the wiki-databases, users reviews and details of all relevant quests, trivia and wiki-database points. Syncing accounts with Social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
websites Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
is also available. A universal log-in for users with accounts on more than one Whiskey Media website is now available.
Membership services
There are three levels of membership on the Whiskey Media websites, one is free and two are paid subscriptions. All three are available globally. A blog on the Whiskey Media website in 2011 stated that they were close to 10,000 premium members.Free members are able to do everything as listed in the community features from creating lists, blogs and contributing to the wiki-databases. The paid subscription service includes HD Video that is available in streaming, progressive or download, HTML5-based mobile sites and access to a live friday show.
Users who choose to pay per-annum will receive everything that is included in the Monthly subscription service plus no viewable advertisements and a custom T-Shirt.
The Friday show, dubbed the "Whiskey Media Happy Hour" features editorial and behind the scenes staff from the brands. It features news on travelling assignments editoral members have made as well as shorter versions of Big Live Live Show: Live! segments.
Reception
Giant Bomb was Voted by Time MagazineTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011. Jacob Kaplan-Moss hailed Whiskey Media for their "commitment to helping Django thrive." Whiskey Media's method of content created by its users through community tools has been praised for the way it "increases the popularity of the site[s] and gives the business more potential revenue."
The Big Live Live Show: Live! was considered "a labor of love from the whole Whiskey Media family and for the price of free [...] there’s not too much to complain about here."