TechTV Forever //

TechTV Forever started about 10 years ago, born out of the disappointment and frustration that our much-loved TV network dedicated to technology had been snapped up by a TV network that, as we feared at the time and learned as it happened, was dedicated to improving its viewership numbers and reach at the cost of everything that made that network worth watching and everything those of us who enjoyed it held dear. It was a tough time, and we all came together to keep track of our favorite personalities, their activities, their new and future projects, and where they went after TechTV went off the air, and we’ve done a great job at that!

Times change though. A while back we asked you what you thought, where we should go from here, and while we know plenty of you are out there, it seems like many of you were as stumped as we are!

These days even some of our favorite podcast projects, like Tekzilla over at Revision3, are slowing down or shutting down, and it’s not for lack of tech programming on the web – TWiT is still running strong, YouTube is packed with unboxing videos, reviews, software tutorials, and more tech videos than you could ever watch – not to mention tons of old TechTV programs that have been uploaded to the web.

A number of our favorite personalities are still podcasting and still dishing out great information, like Patrick Norton over on This Week in Computer Hardware and Leo Laporte on the eponymous This Week in Tech, to name a few. Even more are doing their own things in different areas, and we support all of them wholeheartedly.

That said, it’s time for our experiment to wrap itself up. We’re putting a lid on TechTVForever (or as some of you know us, BeyondTechTV), but we’re not screwing that lid on too tightly. We’ll still be around, if there’s still big news we’ll update, and we’ll do our best to keep the links on this site up to date and pointing to the right projects, social streams, and shows that our favorite personalities are working on. And of course, as always, if you have tips and more information, leave them for us in the comments here, or anywhere on the site.

It’s been an amazing 10 years watching technology evolve and change, and watching our favorite tech reporters, enthusiasts, journalists, and fans evolve with it. Here’s to the future!

Just over 10 years ago, TechTV, the 24-hour technology news, reviews, and enthusiast channel that we all knew and loved, announced it was being bought by Comcast and merged with G4 – a move that we all know at this point would go down in infamy, mean the end of TechTV, the end of regular technology programming on TV, and do absolutely nothing to slow the steady and rapid decline (and now near demise) of G4.

Out of those ashes rose a number of enthusiast sites, email groups, and – most notably – podcasts and web video shows dedicated to tech programming. The network lived on for a while in Canada, Leo Laporte started the TWiT network, Revision3 was born, and we’ve seen a number of awesome shows and people come and go from the technology space. TWiT started as a regular recap of tech news, Ziff Davis ran Digital Life TV (then DL.TV) for a long time with Patrick Norton and Robert Heron, Systm was born on Revision3, we saw hilarious shows like Weezy and The Swish come and go, Morgan Webb’s WebbAlert rose and vanished at the height of its popularity, Kevin Rose’s Digg and Diggnation both exploded in popularity and then subsided, the Lab Rats answered tech questions and reviewed gear, AmberMac’s CommandN was a great, quick roundup of tech and social media news, and of course, Tekzilla turned up as the premier video tech show, and only recently ended its run.

It’s been a long 10 years, and while all of that was happening, the TechTVForever YahooGroup appeared and gave former TechTV fans a place to rally together, keep up with their favorite personalities, and help each other with tech. Out of that group, I started this blog – again, all back in 2004 – so we had a home on the web to keep track of new shows, new episodes, events in the tech world, and what our favorite personalities were up to. We’ve kept that up for the past 10 years – making sure homepages were up to date, new episodes were posted, and regularly going back over our old friends to see what they’ve been up to.

Still, while there’s sadly no substantive tech or TechTV-like prorgammning on TV, there’s more than ever before on the web. Tons of YouTube channels, blogs, and other personalities have their own podcasts, regular shows, Twitch and UStream streams, and more where they answer questions, cover the news, offer opinions, do unboxings, and more. It’s a great time to watch tech on the web, even if TV hasn’t–and probably never will-catch up. Still, that brings us to TechTVForever.

I’ve kept this site running and updated regularly with new episodes every day for 10 years. At this stage, the most active former TechTV personalities have shows on the TWiT network, and Revision3 has all but spun down any programs featuring our old friends (even though there are plenty of new shows with new friends over there.) I’m curious: Should we stay or should we go? Should we keep this up, and keep hunting for more that our old friends are up to, or should we set the sun on this project? We’ll let you guys make the call. Either way, it’s been a good run, and there’s plenty more over the horizon. We could walk you there, or let you get there on your own!