Officially Moved to http://comparativegeeks.com

Happy 4th of July for those that celebrate it!!

So this is the 1000th and final post on the comparativegeeks.wordpress.com site; some of you might have noticed some updates made to our social media accounts already. All future content will only be posted to the newly set up and self-hosted http://comparativegeeks.com. This has been such a great place to share some of our thoughts, opinions, views, etc. WordPress.com has such a wonderful community and there is a part of us that hates leaving. Thank you everyone who has joined us here, commenting, reading, and engaging on these topics. Hopefully it will not be too much of a leap to have you join us at the new site.

By doing a self-hosted site there are definitely features that we can add through customizations that would not be available if we kept the site here. We are excited about this new endeavor, but we are sad to leave.

It is not about changing what we are doing, but trying to improve and expand. We will be increasing to posting something at least once a day. Sundays will always be the Comparative Opinions weekly podcast, which we have officially launched so look on the site for that or it should be available on iTunes shortly. The other piece that we are hoping to add is a little bit more community engagement. Forums have been set up to allow for a different type of discussion topics and threads to keep going that can hopefully function a bit better than just a comments section.

This blog started as David and I just wanted to talk about things that we geek out about and we want it to grow beyond just our voice. We have many contributors who have said they would be willing to help write things and we are so grateful to all of them. If you are interested in potentially being a contributor whether it is one post or recurring you can email comparativegeeks@gmail.com. The last three-and-a-half years has definitely been a journey and hopefully they will continue to be so in to the future.

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We’re Headed to a New Site! – Weekend Coffee Share

If we were having coffee, I’d say I hope you noticed that we’ve been working on moving. We’ve mentioned it on the site… maybe not as much as we could or should have. I don’t know. We weren’t wanting to direct people to the site yet, since it was a work-in-progress… We’ve worked, and there’s progress!

If we were having coffee, I would tell you to check out ComparativeGeeks.com in all its glory! We carried over some of this month’s content, so the site wasn’t barren… it also has kept us writing good posts instead of throw-away, because we’re making use of them twice 🙂

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that after you subscribe to the new blog site, you should follow us on social media too if you haven’t. Make sure you can keep up. Our Facebook page has been going for years, but we’ve been working harder to share fun things to it lately. We have a new combined Twitter, however, so that you can make sure to get all the updates from Comparative Geeks, from all of our contributors: https://twitter.com/comparativegeek. We also have a presence on Instagram, Tumblr, and Google+, if those are your cup of tea to my cup of coffee.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that after you subscribe to the new blog and follow us on social media, you should totally check out our new Podcast, Comparative Opinions! Inspired by the blog series of the same name, this is a podcast where we get together for half an hour, talk about a topic and a bit about our lives and geekiness, and then let you get on your merry way. The first episode has been submitted to iTunes, so hopefully it will be available there soon!

If we were having coffee, I would tell you this is post 999 on Comparative Geeks. At 1000, I think we may be turning into a pumpkin – this blog will stop posting, and you’ll want to be heading over to ComparativeGeeks.com instead. With the new site comes more contributors, daily posting, a forum for ongoing discussion, the weekly podcast, and more.

We’ve gotten to this point through all the great help and support and readership and comments and shares and encouragement from all of you, our readers. Thank you so much. We have enjoyed blogging here for three and a half years, and it was time to step up or step back. We are stepping up in a big way, and we hope you join us for the ride.

If you haven’t yet, after clicking all those links above, make sure to check out the rest of the coffee linkup over on PartTimeMonster!

Catching up on life… and moving forward

I’ll just say it – we still need a post for this week and I’m not sure what to write. We’ve been putting work and thought into the new site – coming soon! It’s likely to be a work in process for a bit, but it’s coming together. We’ve started recording a podcast – that’s definitely going well!

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Maybe there was some news from E3… certainly there was this:

Thanks for reminding us of all the great folks who have left SourceFed, SourceFed. 😦

There’s tonight’s Game of Thrones finale as well. Still processing that… we’ve finally been getting the experience that non-book-readers have had all along.

Or there’s my current obsession, the third edition of Warmachine and Hordes… I’m 2 and 1 so far! Keeping up the winning record…

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But I’m doing more than playing (and list building): Holly and I have been painting!

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Plenty to talk about, I suppose, but my thoughts aren’t focused on any one thing. How about you? How’s life? What do you want to read from us? Say hello in the comments below!

Geek 501 – Geek Where You Are

I feel like the massive explosion of geek culture in recent years – to the point that it doesn’t feel like a counter-culture anymore – is due in large part to the Internet. The Internet allows geeks to find each other, allows fans and fandoms to find each other. It allows for our expressions of geekiness to be found by others, for us to be creators as well and to have an audience. It allows niche and obscure things to have a large following, because the whole following can potentially connect together.

However, I’m also frequently reminded of how important it is to have a local focus, even as we geek. Let’s go with an example.

Coming Soon to Comparative Geeks

So what needs to be said first of all is that we are moving! We have decided that to expand our options on with Comparative Geeks we are going to move to a self-hosted site in the beginning of July. There will be a lot of exciting things coming including new features and posts going up seven days a week. By hosting the site ourselves it gives us an option to potentially expand. This is an exciting new adventure and we hope that you will come along for the ride with us. Here are some of the exciting new things we are including in the new website.

Podcast

This is probably one of the biggest things we are adding and that is a podcast called Comparative Opinions. We are still trying to figure out the exact formatting, but we are planning on posting it once a week, keeping it to 30 to 45 minutes. It is probably going to start with just David and I talking about the same sorts of things we blog about, just in a different format. Eventually we are hoping to include some other bloggers and potentially interviews, but for now we are going to keep it simple to start.

Forums

Now something that we are going to hope that we can use to get more feedback and participation from the audience is a forum. We are hoping to potentially use it as a place to discuss books, movies, and explore other questions about a variety of geeky things. Eventually we might use it to start a book club or even a movie club of some sort to allow everyone to participate in a longer term discussion.

Additional Contributors

So another reason that we are going down this direction is to increase the number of contributor posts. We are trying to make Comparative Geeks not just the Holly-and-David show, but be something that can be a place for others to join in. Whether they have sites of their own or want a place to post without needing their own hosting. Eventually we would like to grow to be able to have more than one post a day, but that is a bit more of a distant dream right now.

So if you or someone you know wants to geek out a little as a contributor we would be happy to talk to you about what that could be. Whether it is an occasional post or a regular spot, there are all sorts of options. You can either leave a comment below or you are welcome to email us a comparativegeeks@gmail.com!

And stay tuned for more updates over the next month!