Husband-and-wife team Cali Lewis and Neal Campbell had a simple idea: cutting through a morass of information by delivering technology news in short, three- to five-minute segments. So in December 2005, they released the first of what would become many video podcasts under the name Geek Brief. With this format, designed specifically to appeal to those of us who don’t want to spend hours sifting through endless gobs of tech news, their podcast quickly became a shining beacon of clarity.
“By the sixth month, we were at 150,000 viewers [per episode],” says Lewis, the on-camera half of the duo. The short, to-the-point format struck a chord in the geek community, and word of the show spread like a computer virus. Geek Brief now has more than 350,000 downloads per episode.
Thanks to the show’s loyal fans, Lewis and Campbell both quit their day jobs to do Geek Brief full-time from their Dallas-area home. Of course, that means they are working harder than ever. Lewis says she spent almost 40 hours without sleep when Apple launched its 3G iPhone, “trying to put out shows and deal with all the information coming in.”
That freedom also means the couple can broaden their sights. They want to inform their fans (they call them “friends of the show”) about the research taking place all over the country. So, in a tour bus equipped with a mobile TV studio, Geek Brief will soon take to the road to report on technology for geeks in all 50 states.
The best part? They just might take a purple bus called-you guessed it-Barney the Big Trip Bus. Definitely geeky.
Watch the video podcast online at GeekBrief.TV.
