From the Desk of Xopher Reed:
We’ve all heard the idiom before, No News is Good News, right? I mean it is one of those annoying ass sayings that comes about when someone (usually less educated than you, because we know that you dear reader, are a goddamned genius) doesn’t really have anything to add to the discussion, yet they feel like they should say something.
In this case it happens to be true. No more news is great news for us and for you here at WPR.
Nearly 4 years ago, I started dabbling in Internets pretty hardcore and decided that I too wanted my own website. It was the success of many smaller sites that I was associated with (in the communities, not on the actual site itself) that led me to believe I could do the same. In that brainstorm, MediaWhoreNetwork was created.
It was to be a Mecca for wary Internet travelers who were sick of news, news, news, news. It was a glorious time even though the site’s looks sucked balls. I mean it was REALLY BAD. Having reviews, editorials, and just all around original content that you couldn’t get anywhere else drove thousands of people our way. With social networking sites like Digg, Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook providing a platform for us to shout at the masses, it seemed that MWN was ready to become something big.
I only wish I would have had some forethought about naming the site because the URL with “whore” in it caught the eye of many work-based firewalls and content filters. Somewhere in the decision for MWN to become a new site with new looks and content, we lost our way when it came to original content and became another parrot news site with snarky ass news.
Thank Crom we’ve learned our lesson!
Starting today, we’ve turned over a new leaf. Well an old one really. We don’t want to be a news site anymore, there’s no soul in that type of work…in fact, it does nothing but crush the spirit and individuality of a site such as ours. We will now strive to bring you original content each day and articles that you might actually have to READ instead of gleam for information. We’ll most likely be providing less daily content (i.e. Derp News Posts) and will be bringing you actual meaty and delicious morsels of our collective geekdom.
Gone are the days where you get a dumbass one paragraph articles where we say “hey look at this trailer” or “this guy said something, now I say something”, nope…those posts are long gone in the new world of WPR. I can promise that we’ll still be doing reviews, but generally of products that we actually enjoy and use…which means that if something sucks, you can almost bet we won’t be looking at it, wasting our money on it, or talking about it here.
Most of us are kind in our reviews mainly because we’re fans of things and we don’t normally feel like mounting the soapbox unless we find something good about product X.
As the CEO, I am going to strive to bring massive amounts of podcasts to the site because let’s face it, I have the bandwidth, I might as well use it, and to be completely honest…this whole venture was originally meant to be a haven for my podcasts (which I promise more of soon).
We will also be starting up a fitness inspired portion of the site soon which we’re going to spin off into what we’re calling the No Hungy movement in which at least two of the fatassed people who run this site talk about what they’re doing to lose it for good. That’s relatively soon (as soon as I get off said fat ass and code the damn thing), and the podcasts are soon as well, but like I said, today is about us realizing that we don’t want to be THAT news site, we don’t want to do THAT type of writing anymore.
Welcome to the new WPR. We hope you enjoy what we’re bringing to the party, join us won’t you?
Another word from Ryan Thomason
Even though we’ve tripled our audience in the first year of WatchPlayRead bring in existence, we still felt like we were doing something wrong. In a mad drive to please the mighty PR overlords and media bigwigs to find that elusive advertising dollar, we felt like the essence of the foundations we built this site upon were being driven away. We’ve ditched every ad, and paid for the site for years in advance from our own pocket. Our focus is on giving you something original, something to make you think, something to make you come back. If somewhere down the line we get an offer we can’t refuse to put up an Ad, we might take it into consideration. For now, we’re just going to go back to having fun and talking about the things we love, and only the things we love. We get plenty of review products, but only the things that we truly believe are worth purchasing and bringing to your attention will make the website. We will write no less than a thousand words per article (with an exception for our “This week in Games/Comics/Movies features”), so prepare to sip a drink while you read from here on out.
We are in control of our destiny, just as you are in yours. Join us, have fun, and lets build the next phase in the continuous evolution that is this website.
