As you all hopefully have heard by now, we launched the “Discuss” section of The Amp Hour this past weekend. Though it may be an unfamiliar format, we’re really hoping that listeners will take the time to stop by that part of our site. We think it could be a great way for everyone to get to know one another and build up the The Amp Hour community. However, if that alone isn’t enough motivation for you, there will be two other functions of the Discuss section:
- Guest Questions
Since the Discuss section has a built in voting system for links and comments, it’s well suited to people asking questions to our upcoming guests on the show. The top rated questions will get asked (as opposed to Dave and Chris choosing at random of the comments left on a post). This coming week, we’ll have Matt Ettus of Ettus Research on the show. Matt started a Software Defined Radio company that developed the Universal Software Radio Peripheral. Since starting the company, Ettus research was acquired by National Instruments, maker of test equipment and control software. Please leave any questions you’d like us to ask him on the discussion site!
- News Items
You have probably heard Chris and Dave talk about “the list”, right? Well right now, that lives in a Google Document that is closed off to anyone but us and our guests. A secondary function of the Discuss section of The Amp Hour will be to act as a proxy to “the list”. More specifically, “the list” will get phased out and we’ll instead move towards a public, discussable, user-submittable set of news items and projects that we will work from for each show.
What does this mean for you? It means there’s an easier way to help participate in shaping the show! Instead of posting something to our “Suggestions” page, you can now submit the link directly to the Discuss section of the website. If you don’t know of anything to submit (and that’s definitely not required, we’ll be adding throughout the week), you can go there and vote on your favorite stories. And if you have something to say about a specific story or idea, you can leave a comment or start a discussion with other members of the site. Interactivity at its finest!
We know that it’s weird when things start to change, but hopefully with the above two points you can start to see some of the reasoning behind starting the Discuss section. We can interact with you, get better feedback and really make sure we’re covering the stuff that the community would like us to cover. If you have any questions or comments, head over to the Discussion area now and start a new thread!