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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

What Am I Doing? Part 2!


Hi all!  I've continued to be a bit quieter on YouTube than usual in this between-releases season, but I've also continued to use this time for important behind-the-scenes work that will pay dividends in 2020.  The four major groups of tasks I mentioned previously have all been wrapped up, but a bunch of new stuff, some completely unexpected, some long overdue, has been keeping me busy.  Time for another update list!
  1. COPPA
    • I won't rehash all of the details on this one as I've already done three long videos on it, read & made countless relevant comments on my own YouTube channels and others', posted a lot on Twitter both publicly & in DMs, etc. I've watched dozens of hours of interpretations & opinions from fellow creators as well as full-on lawyers, entertained numerous thought experiments, and culled through mountains of information and disinformation alike to get as clear & objective of an understanding as I can to ensure that all of my channels will stay well clear of any compliance issues. As mentioned in all three videos, my personal stress about all of this is quite low, but I've spent a ton of time & effort learning, challenging my knowledge, and confirming facts from reliable sources regardless. Do note that due to compliance, many of my videos will no longer have comments or trigger subscription notifications starting Jan. 1, 2020!
  2. More studio upgrades
    • I finally upgraded to a better foundation for capturing audio with the help of several new pieces of equipment, and I'm getting the software-side audio engineering dialed in to use this equipment effectively.  More importantly, I got a bunch of new shelving & drawer units for my office, studio, city room, and building space.  In the middle of review seasons I always get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of products piling up and I now have a lot more organized short-, intermediate-, and long-term storage alike, a massive boon to quality of life.
  3. Branding
    • I'm officially behind schedule on developing channel art & icons for my Pure Builds channel as I've not felt confident in any of the sketches & ideas I tried in my early efforts.  Just this past week I decided to rewind this back to square one and roll it into a larger effort to create new "Jang" branding that'll help unite at least my brick-based channels.  I still see occasional viewer comments on either build channel accusing me of "stealing from Jang," so this is clearly needed work.  It'll also help me with future efforts to adapt to 1) above.
  4. Web domain & server migrations
    • I used to run a bunch of content-heavy web sites for a previous hobby, and even in the LEGO space I had three blogs and a couple of active domain names before the one you're on now.  All of that stuff has languished on aging and unnecessarily expensive servers & such even as most of it has fallen into obsolescence.  After years of putting it off I've completed much of the footwork of cleaning up the dusty old digital messes, aggregating everything together and significantly reducing the money I waste on unused services.
In my last update I mentioned preparing for "a whole new LEGO layout," but the COPPA-related revelations just four days later brought that idea to a full stop for the time being.  What I was planning would more assuredly have fit into the "mixed audience" designation which on YouTube has to be marked as "for kids," killing comments & notifications before I even start on the content.  I'm going to wait & see how the COPPA realities pan out in 2020 before investing in something new that could potentially be crippled from its inception.

Outside of the brick-based construction toy world, many of you are aware of my knife collecting hobby, and though I've not done any knife reviews on my personal channel in quite awhile, one of the shelving units mentioned in 2) above was mostly dedicated to my blades, allowing them to expand from mixed piles & disparate containers into a comfortable space. Now it'll actually feel good to get back to filming that stuff.  Separately, I've started taking formal firearms training and shopping for my next purchases in that space for home defense & leisure alike.

The next LEGO release season officially kicks off two weeks from the date of this post, but as usual I expect to find some of the new stuff on store shelves before then, so even in the worst case scenario it won't be long before the three core channels are bustling with new content once again!

2 comments:

  1. I'm pretty sure we subscribe to all your channels so I'm not concerned about missing videos, but that will not be good for users who don't regularly go through their subscription feed like I do. Maybe you could set up an "alerts" Twitter/Facebook account that just posts new video links. That would allow people to have some notification for videos separate from all new social media posts.

    Regarding branding, and I know I'm not alone on this, I would love to see some nice, designed Jang branding and ability to buy shirts! I'm sure you are talking more about the feel of the channels so people know it is actually your content, but that's something I've talked to other Jang fans about and I know there are several of us who would buy shirts or something like that to help support you as a creator.

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  2. The inner workings of how you manage all of this is incredibly fascinating to me. Thanks for the insight!

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