Review of Best Damn Tech Show, Period.

In order to get your site noticed, it always helps to have either a quick-witted Australian co-host with a thick accent or a kickass name for your vlog. The Best Damn Tech Show, Period has both.

But the show doesn’t rely on Aussie host Paul “Flemo” Fleming and doesn’t hide behind its name.  Web veteran Drew Olanoff and Adam Plante round out the trio who started producing 30-minute programs back in June 2005, in what looked like a spare bedroom somewhere in Chester, PA. They posted sporadically until their one year anniversary, acquiring several dozen videos before moving on to Version 2 – their second “season.”

With popularity comes more posts, so they now upload a new show each Monday, along with several other blog postings with clips from their various trips to conventions, and other newsworthy items. The techies use the show to discuss major news stories in consumer technology and the internet, as well as to give reviews of new gadgets and websites. They call their expertise “infotechment,” which neologistically speaking, is pretty sweet.

The 30-40 minute videos themselves are anything but high quality.  Three guys sit behind tables, gulping Yuengling and cursing, while they discuss big events like Google acquiring YouTube and AOL becoming fee-free

.  Beyond their friendly jeering of one another you more or less hear decent debates about what kind of lawsuits Google may have to combat, the legality of alternate music downloading sites, and the increasingly stalker-like features on Facebook.  The guys also recommend cool places to go next time you’re searching the web (my favorite so far is the incredibly addictive Google Image Labeler, which they highlight on Episode v 2.14). You can also enjoy screenshots of new programs in the Best Damn Reviews segment.

This isn’t your carefully scripted, formal tech review show, but Drew, Flemo, and Adam are all relaxed and they work well together, giving off a comfortably knowledgeable vibe that gives the viewer a good time (check out their iProduct predictions a couple minutes into this episode to see what I mean).

I personally enjoyed the videos shot on location at various conventions much better. I especially appreciated a video shot at Podcamp, where they interviewed the various attendees to get their impressions of the event.  Also check out a conversation about the size of pepper shakers during a lunch break at DEMOfall 2006 in San Diego that somehow eventually becomes a conversation about over-nighting Philly cheesesteaks.