He's baaaack. October 20, 2011 12:10 PM Subscribe
PVRBlog returned from the dead today!
I was an old school TiVo hacker and was surprised to note a flurry of activity in my RSS feed from PVRBlog, which was sold/left for dead a couple of years ago. Plus, I might be the only one who didn't know it was run by none other than user #1 of metafilter. I thought, "Hey, that name seems familiar." Good to see things returning to the way they used to be.
I was an old school TiVo hacker and was surprised to note a flurry of activity in my RSS feed from PVRBlog, which was sold/left for dead a couple of years ago. Plus, I might be the only one who didn't know it was run by none other than user #1 of metafilter. I thought, "Hey, that name seems familiar." Good to see things returning to the way they used to be.
Shh, Crunchland, only Cabal members got the press release.
posted by Jahaza at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2011
posted by Jahaza at 12:16 PM on October 20, 2011
Cool. Kind of weird that someone spent 12k on it, then never made a single post.
posted by selfnoise at 12:21 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by selfnoise at 12:21 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
There is no official cabal press release service.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:21 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 12:21 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
So it's a zombie?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:29 PM on October 20, 2011
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:29 PM on October 20, 2011
That picture of mathowie is awesome!
posted by slogger at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 12:31 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
PVR? Is this something I would need a TV to understand?
posted by entropicamericana at 12:38 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by entropicamericana at 12:38 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Hey, that's actually a cool site. Want to sell it?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
We need to up our donations, the poor lad's been reduced to flipping domain names to make ends meet!
posted by Abiezer at 1:03 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Abiezer at 1:03 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
I hope this means one of my favorite sockpuppet jokes of all time will get some extra favorites. (You have to read the first comment in the thread for it to work.)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:39 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 1:39 PM on October 20, 2011 [1 favorite]
Ever since I sold the site a couple years back, people have periodically asked me about it, and it was usually something like "hey, why haven't the new owners made any posts yet?" and I never had a good answer. At one time the about page said something about how they underestimated how much time it'd be. I spent a couple days with them in Texas, showing them where I found stories (I gave them a full RSS list for good sources), wrote a couple demo posts, etc and I was under the impression this was going to be a fun side project for a company that doesn't normally create content. They never did post though.
I've felt the urge to make a post in the style of PVRblog about once a month but my personal site doesn't quite fit right and for the last few months I considered approaching them to ask if they wanted to unload it, so today I had some money saved up at PayPal, asked them about it, they offered a number (I won't say how much) and I accepted. I logged in, changed the layout to the old one and wrote a couple posts.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:53 PM on October 20, 2011
I've felt the urge to make a post in the style of PVRblog about once a month but my personal site doesn't quite fit right and for the last few months I considered approaching them to ask if they wanted to unload it, so today I had some money saved up at PayPal, asked them about it, they offered a number (I won't say how much) and I accepted. I logged in, changed the layout to the old one and wrote a couple posts.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:53 PM on October 20, 2011
It's mostly because I just have a tiny nagging voice in my head that says "hey, you should make a post on PVRblog today" and I've been ignoring that voice for a couple years and would rather just have it silenced.
eBay/PayPal are an evil empire, but I guess mathowie needed an even more effective technique for silencing voices.
posted by Chuckles at 1:54 PM on October 20, 2011
eBay/PayPal are an evil empire, but I guess mathowie needed an even more effective technique for silencing voices.
posted by Chuckles at 1:54 PM on October 20, 2011
No one ever offers me money for my websites.
Ok, I was once offered $300 measly dollars for christopher.jorgensen.name, but I was actively using the site at the time and looked the guy up and he was a lawyer or architect and was a partner in a a big New York firm.
I countered with $30k and got a surreal email. I think it read:
posted by cjorgensen at 4:57 PM on October 20, 2011 [17 favorites]
Ok, I was once offered $300 measly dollars for christopher.jorgensen.name, but I was actively using the site at the time and looked the guy up and he was a lawyer or architect and was a partner in a a big New York firm.
I countered with $30k and got a surreal email. I think it read:
Go fuck yourself,It was like I sent that email to myself.
Christopher Jorgensen
posted by cjorgensen at 4:57 PM on October 20, 2011 [17 favorites]
Yay! This is so cool, glad to see the blog back online!
posted by victors at 8:05 PM on October 20, 2011
posted by victors at 8:05 PM on October 20, 2011
I thought it was the corporate blog for Pabst Vermilion Ribbon beer.
posted by mintcake! at 8:47 PM on October 20, 2011
posted by mintcake! at 8:47 PM on October 20, 2011
PVR is the beer all the hipsters drink, right?
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 7:47 AM on October 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 7:47 AM on October 21, 2011 [1 favorite]
Am I the only one on the face of the earth that didn't know that Mathowie had a tumor? How the hell did I miss that?
posted by spicynuts at 7:48 AM on October 21, 2011
posted by spicynuts at 7:48 AM on October 21, 2011
He's discovered a way to pause and unpause live websites!
posted by davey_darling at 8:22 AM on October 21, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by davey_darling at 8:22 AM on October 21, 2011 [3 favorites]
I had a tumor too, but only because I wanted to be more like mathowie.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:36 AM on October 21, 2011
posted by cjorgensen at 8:36 AM on October 21, 2011
Squinting really hard; someone paid twelve thousand dollars and didn't make a single post? W T F. I sure hope you bought it back for a grand! :-P
BTW, Ceton Tuner + Windows Media Center = The real best PVR solution. For serious. The end. Or something. I've seen the light. Yeah.
posted by cavalier at 9:54 AM on October 21, 2011
BTW, Ceton Tuner + Windows Media Center = The real best PVR solution. For serious. The end. Or something. I've seen the light. Yeah.
posted by cavalier at 9:54 AM on October 21, 2011
Wait wait wait, now I'm squinting harder and in the last post reading the site was generating 1200-1500 incoming?
I'm sure this is pretty nosey, but holy jesus was that just using AdSense? I'm .. .I'm just grasping at how you were averaging about $2-$3 an hour. The CPM links/networks I've used, granted, tiny search engine traffic, I think the biggest payout I saw was $68. FOR A YEAR.
(This is the part where Matt goes "Hah, yeah, uh, PVRBlog had 2.8 million unique hits a month" and I do that o.O thing)
posted by cavalier at 10:04 AM on October 21, 2011
I'm sure this is pretty nosey, but holy jesus was that just using AdSense? I'm .. .I'm just grasping at how you were averaging about $2-$3 an hour. The CPM links/networks I've used, granted, tiny search engine traffic, I think the biggest payout I saw was $68. FOR A YEAR.
(This is the part where Matt goes "Hah, yeah, uh, PVRBlog had 2.8 million unique hits a month" and I do that o.O thing)
posted by cavalier at 10:04 AM on October 21, 2011
*wraps cottonwool around valuable user #1*
*mails free range organic chickens for soup from Africa*
posted by infini at 12:36 PM on October 21, 2011
*mails free range organic chickens for soup from Africa*
posted by infini at 12:36 PM on October 21, 2011
cavalier, it was doing hundreds of thousands of pageviews, there still are about 150k RSS subscribers (it must have been bundled as a default tech RSS feed in something) and in the old days of early adsense the CPM was very high, like on the order of $4-5 and sometimes up to $10, so it made a lot of money on a narrow topic with light posting and decent traffic. I never used networks or advertising, just tried to write good posts was all.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:09 PM on October 21, 2011
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:09 PM on October 21, 2011
Yay! Wait a minute. I thought that site was sold to someone else?
posted by dgeiser13 at 8:20 AM on October 25, 2011
posted by dgeiser13 at 8:20 AM on October 25, 2011
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posted by crunchland at 12:14 PM on October 20, 2011