Recently a sector of the Wordpress community has been buzzing about the sale of the popular WP theme site wpdesigner.com. The site’s owner (previous owner) Small Potato has been fairly quiet over the last few weeks regarding the details of what is going on and I was excited (I’m lame I know) to hear that he was going to do an interview via podcast with someone from Jeffro2pt0.com, a site I’ve never heard of that supposedly does a weekly podcast on all things Wordpress.
Tonight, I got some time to download the interview and hear what Small Potato had to say about the site, the themes and his future. What I thought was going to be an entertaining interview quickly began to reveal itself as something else… possibly the most uncomfortable interview I have ever heard.
Ok I don’t really think it was the worst interview ever, but it was quite uncomfy at times.
I have no idea if he (Jeffro) prepped Small Potato on the questions (updated in comments below) but from the sound of things he did not. Things go bad early as Jeffro introduces his guest by basically reading the title tag of the Wpdesigner.com website and then says
Jeffro: “Thanks for coming to the show”
Small Potato: …
[2 seconds of uncomfortable silence]
Jeffro: [stutters before saying] “uh, umm.. ahem… umm with that brief introduction why don’t you tell us a little more about yourself?”
Small Potato: “Uh, I got into wordpress around.. i think 2005.. um… really not much to tell, what do you want to know Jeff?”
From here the train wreck begins. You can actually hear Jeffro choking on his own spit, swallowing hard…
As it turns out Mr. Potato is a man of strong opinions and very, very few words. Jeffro on the other hand is the polar opposite, at times he rambles on talking for a full minute or more, actually commenting on his own questions (is anyone interested in hearing Jeffro’s experience with Joomla programming?)… in the end he wraps back around to asking a question to which Potato will answer in one or two words. “Yes” or “Well, No”
Small Potato comments on the state of Wordpress saying things like “I think sidebar content and widgets …are useless” and says that Magazine style themes are already useless and out of style since the launch of the Options Theme.
Another uncomfortable moment comes with Jeffro comments that it’s “strange” that he’s sitting in his computer chair in the United States while Small Potato is “all the way across the pond over there” to which Potato says “I’m actually in California.” Wow, definitely no pre-interview talk between the two. Jeffro attempts to recover by saying
Jeffro: “Ooooh I thought you were across the pond for some reason… well, California is still pretty far away
[attempts to crack joke] “depends on how you get there…”
[jeffro laughs] “ahahahhahah”
Small Potato: … [DEAD SILENCE]
Jeffro: “Uh… so… aahhhh…”
Jeffro… buddy… really… if you’re going to do this thing do it right, do the research, prepare your interviewee with some questions, you might even try to figure out where they are phoning you from. Seriously. I like the idea of a Wordpress weekly podcast and I did get a few nuggets of info from the interview so I’m not saying it’s all bad. It’s a great idea, just needs some work.
I’m telling you, if you are even remotely interested in Wordpress or wpdesigner.com or if you just want to hear the worst, most uncomfortable interview ever, you need to hear this. Hear the whole thing now, click here.
Update 3.24.08: Jeffro was nice enough to stop by and leave a comment that cleared up a few things. He explained that the call was done using a third party app and there was some lag between the two callers, causing some of the dead-time between questions and answers. He also declared that he does not want to do a professional podcasts and enjoys doing the interviews in an amateur style. In that case, mission accomplished.
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Hey there, thanks for the constructive criticism. I’ll start off by saying that the show I do is not the most professional. I guess that is clearly evident. As for the pauses, I do the show live on Talkshoe and because of the way the connections work ( they are not as direct as Skype connections) there is sometimes a bit of lag. This could cause awkward or unintentional pauses. And, it’s apparently evident that I have a speech impediment where I say UM and UHH way too often. I appear to have a select vocabulary of words that I don’t really strive away from using. I’m trying to improve on that aspect of the show.
As for prescreening the questions that I will ask to the interviewer, I disagree. Everything I ask is generally towards what I would consider general knowledge for that individual. I shouldn’t have to give the questions to the person I am going to interview as then the show would sound fabricated and that is not what I want.
At this point, I really have no interest in doing this podcast professionally or giving it a professional feel. If you want something like that, listen to the WordPress Podcast. I have taken your tips to heart and I’ll see what I can do.
i am way too tired to give a shit….
If you don’t think it’s the worst interview ever, don’t use the headline “Gives Worst Interview Ever” just to bait readers in. Give honest criticism, sure, but please don’t 1) mislead readers and 2) inappropriately slam someone publicly in the headline.
Yeah… cuz no one uses headlines to attract readers, right?
That’s not what Peter said. It’s fine to bait readers with your title if you deliver on it. Why would you say “Jeffro gives Worst Interview Ever” then say “I don’t really think it was the worst interview ever, but it was quite uncomfy at times”. Making bold claims are fine, but you’d better back them up.
Ok, so would you say you’d also have a problem with this post I just got in my RSS feed from ReadWriteWeb?
Post Title: The Lifestreaming Backlash
First sentence of article: Backlash is probably too harsh a word, but as the buzz around…
First and foremost your article is savagely inappropriate and blends absolutely “no” constructive criticism to the topic in which you were trying to convey.
Talk show hosting and management doesn’t just happen, it takes serious preparation and dedication, (which Jeffro does a fantastic job at) regardless of the format, which is completely informal. After-all, it isn’t like he is getting paid to freely produce this pod-cast.
All I can request is that for future relations, especially about the show in which you are so heavily and ignorantly referring too, that you take note of the show, its format, and base judgment on it after those factors have at least been accounted for. To say such horrible things in such a blatant, disregarding way, is a complete waste of time and energy to everyone, and a betrayal to all things wordpress.
Perhaps you need to move over to Movable Type!
What the???
Oh, by the way, I just wanted to say that I was really dissappointed when I read the post titled “Gnarls Barkely is God.” In fact, you did not deliver, and prove that Gnarls Barkley is (collectively) a deity. Chiggidy check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Where do these people come from?
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