Gadgetory

good morning good afternoon good evening everyone and welcome to episode 004 of the pocket now VIP the interview series from pocket now where the technology itself takes a backseat allowing us to get to know the people who report on it I'm Michael Fisher editorial director at pocket now and today I'm joined by a man I've never met in person but he's the man behind one of the best known publications on youtube in our field mark from soldierknowsbest mark welcome to the Attic payment hey man thanks for having man is good to be here it is awesome to have you here thank you for taking the time to join us this one came together at the last minute we're running about 23 minutes late because of some last-minute technical hurdles we had to clear as everyone knows Google likes to change up their hangout to you I about once every what is it about 48 hours or so I think so they get it looks likely just change it again yeah I think it's cool yeah I like to do like it actually does get better every time but it actually gets much more difficult to use every because I have to relearn it every time and apparently I'm a 70 year old man so anyway I'm glad that you're here listeners I'm so used to saying listeners for the podcast viewers thank you for joining us and i'm rather excited because mark we confirm that for me we have not met in person right no no i don't think so no yeah no I'm gonna see justice well in January I was just gonna say yes I'm gonna be in Vegas this January you oh yeah I'll be there so we can probably meet in person for the first time I heard from another reporter who is exclusively YouTube based that she was having some difficulty getting registered because apparently CES does not consider YouTube no matter how big you are in YouTube apparently CES doesn't consider that an adequate credential have you had my first year I went to sea ES and I try to use YouTube actually do on-site registration and I had to show them they're like well prove it is you how can you prove it and all i said 'i'm like--that's my face right there youtube channel and but just with these video like this me right yeah all right right and it's like you gotta have like a post with like a thousand hits per month stuff like that like I got a video you known as you know forty thousand a million yeah relays ago so i had just really work with them and then finally the manager approved it but now i go through I'm a network revision3 or actually discovery digital networks right now so they kind of just I'm able to put them on there and have no problems but yeah I said I understand why they just don't recognize youtubers by themselves gonna go through all those hurdles I don't like that at all yeah when I was talking to this other person about it I was like what is this 2007 like YouTube isn't an adequate credential like what are you talking about did you discovery digital is that I mean I assume that's the same folks behind discovery TV yeah yeah so so this basically just it looks like they kind of transition to remove business Rio ver to that so yeah I'm still kind of part of both right now in this this transition but yeah they take care of me for all this other stuff or CES and no I stopped so they good sweet well that's awesome man I I want to actually come back to that in a bit because we I do want to ask you some questions about the business side of soldierknowsbest and how that that's up kind of works but can I i want to start this off kind of learning a little bit about you because as we said earlier we haven't met in person i have actually walked past you once I at this moment where I was like at the galaxy note 2 launch event for that Samsung through New York City remember the one in the the library mmm yeah that the thing that was the Kanye concert one yeah I think yeah that was a pretty cool concert effort it was a cool yeah and I was I was on my way to play ping pong with Taylor and and Marquez and I was like walking by and like that guy familiar who's oh the soldier knows I shouldn't anyway but I don't know you in person and I think a lot of our regular viewers would like to know some more about the stuff and I'm particularly interested in the military man aspect of you um you may get tired of hearing it so thank you for your service though and what branch of the Armed Forces are you with and i'm currently in the Army Reserves okay and so like what what is your I don't know if you want to go into details about your rank and your positions that but what keeps you busy most days is my question and internal well i'm on a reserve so just one weekend a month in in the summer we used to go out of town to a fort hood texas for two weeks and do some training um but when i'm actually you know in on the military side we go on for the weekends we have a lot of powerpoints an army product up by powerpoints a lot of power point slides on training and in all these prevention classes that we do and then we do PT test physical training and then we try to we really are our main units main goal is to actually help train up other aviation units how to get ready to deploy so we kind of helps certify them make sure they're up on their task and throughout the year with the reserves you were basically every every drill just trying to make sure we prepared and we send teams out almost every month of seven to ten individuals that go out to different places that help other people train really now you said aviation unit know if it's army i'm going to assume that we're talking helicopters here yeah yeah that's really cool so in what what is your role specifically in that like when you are in you know your be two years I don't even know if they call him that anymore i sees ok yeah my brothers in the Air Force and I was an ROTC guy in high school and I wanted to join the military when I was younger but all my information is there for like a decade out of day but when you're when you're wearing your uniform when you're actually doing stuff what is what is keeping mark busy in the field yeah mostly on communication so I branched in the Signal Corps so I'm working with is right on my Alice I'm working with computers or really anything I mean we have events I'm the camera picture guy when a computer breaks down I help fix the computer or he'll fix the printer when the colonel need something I'm doing all these type of things we don't have like we don't use radios that often unless we're going out to do training like our two weeks in all that but but the most part I'm just handle all that type of stuff then plus I just help out around as much as I can Roger that I just started in her up to this train of thought here but I just noticed that the three pictures that are normally on your wall behind you were gone are you moving or something no actually uh well no I just moved up i'm in the same building but i moved up and i haven't put those pictures up yet so she loosened only but you moved like you move to floor or something like that yeah yeah it was kind of a different layout and I just really want the balcony so I want to go out to sit out so is it i'm in the same place but i just moved to a different place and this is that almost the same exact layout but yeah it's really creepy it's like some alternate universe were in the same room with the decorations are different it's awesome alright so I'm with you mentioned that your your deal with technology a little bit in your day job which seems to be a really really really nice thing now hold on a second if the reserves are a weekend a year there's no that would be great a weekend a month uh and sometime in the summer time what's keeping you busy the rest of your day like when you're when you're not recording videos um I'm mostly playing halo playing video games to be honest with you well let me tell what I'm testing out these products oh but no I'm um yeah mostly I have different hobbies like here saying Louis I like to play on a whole bunch of different leagues so on the weekends sometimes during the week I go play dodgeball kickball all types of crazy stuff hanging out with friends drinking like normal but I'm trying to you know get through emails and work on other projects and throughout the day but since I'm working for myself to be honest which is not the hardest job I've ever had so I'm not super busy throughout every day unless it's like a big launch the iphone or galaxy something like that but yeah I just kind of kind of pace off my weekend and get the work done st. Louis I was I visited there with my father on a cross-country road trip and we we had a good time we spent entirely too long at the arch if you go into summertime some long odds yeah there were but you know it was worth it it was good we got to pay rent allowed to take a lot of photos but um so it I want to kind of kick things off talking we're gonna gradually to start talking about your business life here and I'm most interested really in probably the most dough question ever but my favorite question always to ask how did you get started and by that I mean not not how did you kick off the business and all that kind of stuff but when did you realize that you wanted to cover geeky stuff and gadgets and stuff as a as a way of life um well I mean he really started with the I was actually Fort Gordon Georgia going through my signal basic course and the very first iphone came out and I'm just out of college so I'm still broke and i really want to set the news i was using the single 8525 windows mobile phone and with the the sideways fighter yeah yeah yeah and so I would like that fo but I was like you know I saw this I phones all the buzz about him anyway I window youtube and watch a whole bunch of videos to decide whether I want to buy it or not because it was totally unsubsidized at that point and so I went ahead and bought it and I put in my own video review on youtube with my digital camera was very crappy back then I just put the video after people say they liked it and then I kind of realized that you know my family and friends and I'm talking with them or I'm at home like that i'm usually helping them with their computers and stuff so i'll say okay well maybe i'm going to start making videos and I was transitioning over to the mac at that time as well and so I just kind of made videos going through my transition and then I just started liking and people other people started liking it and giving me support and then I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it and then when for making ten cents a day to you know make it more than I was making you know in my regular jobs and I just went a net quit and just went full full steam ahead with it that's a really fun moment isn't it like I remember going full time with with pocket now and I was like this can't be this can't be real like I'm serious like I you're paying me to do something I would I would do anyway that's that's another yea that's a love for you know I think you know some sometimes now since the word is out about money on YouTube and stuff like that and it's just money in general do through internet business or whatever but I really love that when back in the day people started because it really was just a hobby because you know something that we really like to do and that's unless my advice I try to get the people when it first starts don't worry about the money and all that stuff just just worry about talking about something that you really love and you really care and then your viewers will come your viewers will support you and then you know the hard work will pay off and you'll be able to hopefully if you want to make a living with it or just make some side change with it or whatever it's really good advice and I'm actually going to press you for some more of that at the end of the interview here because I love ending up on that note because we always get those questions you know how can I do what you guys do cover that in a minute but you mentioned you watch some videos from YouTube videos this is back in two thousand seven when the first iphone launch it do you remember whose videos you watched because it was a much much smaller sector then I have no idea you know our part be able to check is only another YouTube channel that I had a long time ago now into college it may be in the history of it who knows I may be able to go back and check the history I don't know it's probably been deleted after all these YouTube changes but yeah I don't remember who but they were just kind of you know it wasn't you know anybody from a big website of just kind of regular look just like I am just in my office or in my bedroom living room just talking about it for 10-15 minutes and yeah so that's something I'm gonna look up until it be interested see will actually watch first yeah please do I this was I had this noted to ask you a little bit later on but I'll just go and ask you now and went back in my preparations for this time we have together and I was trying to find the oldest soldierknowsbest video that I could find and what was it it was a mature relationship with iOS it was a walkthrough of a game on what looked like an iphone 3g or an iphone 3gs and it was like oh my god do you remember what it was at all because I'm it's it's in my notes here and I absolutely cannot find it right now I'm really annoyed anyway when I find it I'll figure it out because the point was I was bringing that up to to say that you have managed to guess your camera's changed yes your your delivery styles change you actually appear on video now yourself but that aside you've managed to keep the tone in the atmosphere very very consistent from this video that i saw that was probably from 2008 and I wondered if as we transition into talking more about soldierknowsbest itself is that a conscious choice that you've made I mean dude did you just stick with the formula that was working I mean you have just this very approachable you know kind of like hey guys I'm gonna start talking about this and then you start talking about it yeah I mean like what have you have you felt compelled to make any changes and have you resisted that urge um you know I I really just want to you know my whole goal is just try to talk to people in a way that I'll talk to my friends about a product because my friends ask me a lot about this phone and you know you can get real technical and stuff but sometimes you just didn't really need to find out what do people really want from this device and what's really going to be the selling factor for it so really just over all these years I just really try to just keep my personality the same with it and make sure my delivery like you say it's the same but yeah trying to get better at camera work and all that stuff you got people like you know Marquez who is killing it and with all day on video so is this those type of progressions that normally just kind of make with YouTube but overall I just want the whole feel like you said this to beat us am still in my office not I don't have a green screen and nothing else you know up it's just really kind of me used I just want the viewer to feel like this me you are talking about this product and it works really well I mean you have you have the epitome of the minimalist approach there are no there's no splash screen there's no there's no intro outro roll you don't even go crazy with the with the overlays I mean you you are absolutely keeping it about as simple as it can be while also keeping the quality up now this is something that a lot of people I've noticed in your comments have asked you you're usually gracious enough to answer what kind of equipment are you working with for the for the folks out there who who are curious about that kind of thing well I have a just a blue microphones that I normally use yeah yeahs new shotgun my edit got the Sennheiser that I'm I'm trying to work out and get everything right with it my product shots yeah like a little shotgun mic yeah yeah I don't know oh very gotta step my game up but uh but yeah for my camera working a product so actually use the the canon 5d mark 3 with that and just for when you see me my videos i'm using the logitech c920 webcam for that one oh when i go to events like CES and i'm just on the fly like you use it just a real camcorder and don't have the foyer by focusing so i use the canít xa10 with that and yes sony rx100 mark to digital camera i take with me almost everywhere great solution for video and pictures no matter what you're doing yeah and yeah that's that's mostly about it that's pretty substantial arsenal now when you have to take all this footage in and the audio and stuff and when you edit it and what are you using to edit actually I use the same program that I've been using from basically to begin in ScreenFlow which is not even a real kind of video editing app I still can focus best very familiar with me and it's really straight to the point in symbol for how I like to present my videos so ScreenFlow has been really good to me over the years but yeah I try to do one dabble and then I movie in Final Cut but I just me feel just kinda I understand believe me we we use Final Cut Pro over here for video but when I'm when I'm doing graphic stuff like for editorials and stuff when I have to like piece photos together and everything like everyone else on the team uses photoshop everyone else is a pro and I'm sitting right over here with like preview and and you know if I want to get fancy I use like pho tour I use this really really consumer level stuff the same as I think you just said it's because I'm familiar with it I'm comfortable with it and it works for what I needed to do so yeah usually yeah yeah sometimes you can change too much and then people like oh no go back to the old you know I've been through that transition even I started doing in video ads with a revision 3 and it's so it's a really delicate process you make a change like that and make sure the viewers ocampo with it so I just find that you know using the same you know familiar equipment and using you know familiar program just to edit just keeps for that overall feel of your content absolutely yeah I did change can be can be a scary thing and we've we've been through a couple you know style changes over here and then there's always that element of the audience it's like what did you stop go back to the way I liked it the way and really again I know but let's let's push forward sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't um we uh by the way I found out I found in my notes finally what that video was it was called ragdoll blaster do you remember that oh I do remember them no I was a fun game I was gonna say you were pretty amped on it you were like listen I've been playing this game for like days on end and that's what so sorry it took me so long to find that let's go as we as we move on here so that's that's your kind of equipment stuff now you review or discuss a lot of categories I'm soldierknowsbest I mean you're doin phones tablets gaming consoles like all the way to like cameras and like ram upgrades for desktop computers so I'm interested in where you draw the line because you have soldierknowsbest then you have another channel just for gaming right yeah I haven't done anything on that channel like a year though really yeah I want to bring that back up though but yeah I've just been focused on soldierknowsbest and also I did the tech feed channel excuse me with John for lakers and other people with a revision 3 well yeah yeah just but for soldierknowsbest you know as far as you know i think the kind of the most out of the box thing that I reviewed was the dyson vacuum cleaner that would be just cuz the APU what's that look really cool yeah so is that the threshold like is that what it is where it's just like it doesn't necessarily have to be it can be something like a washing machine but if it's cool then Oh then I'll do it is that basically what it is yeah and honestly I mean the real secret too wide for what I choose for my videos the stuff that I actually want or I want to use personally myself and so I really don't go with trends it's just that okay if I'm interested in this product I'm going to review it not review things that I know that are not going to get a lot of views or most monstrous cry birds may not be interested in it but I'm doing it because I like it and so I'm gonna put it up anyway inside is better than G so really cool refrigerator combs and this really cool techie wise i would i would review it and i'll take the feedback by but I'd review something that I like to to use or interested in so sometimes I mean that can be we do a couple projects like that where we we did a video a while back where I took a tour of a sapphire plant we're like you know we they made sapphire coatings for sapphire display protection for smartphones and I knew that the video views were not going to justify the expense of the travel and the day of not writing editorials stuff like that but it was something i was extremely interested in and a small subset of our readers were very interested in as well so i completely agree with you it's like it I don't know sometimes you just have to do what you want and let that enthusiasm bleed into the video and make it a better a better product right yeah yeah I mean you you don't want to feel forced to do something because it was show you know if you're not really happy or excited to be reviewing the product a lot of people feel you know one thing i get for my viewers is that sometimes they say you review a lot of stuff negatively like you don't have a lot of errors that's because i look at the stuff beforehand and if i don't want it because it sucks i'm not going to review it sometimes sometimes i do that for the most part i do that but sometimes i like to get a product because if it is popular this sucks I'll say something about it but i like i like if your products are gonna make me feel good and i'm gonna make me happy to make me satisfied and i just want to portray that to the to the to the viewer so that's a really cool perspective i like i like that i think you're the first person on our VIP has ever said that where it's like I mainly review stuff i like because i don't want to deal with stuff i don't like but then what does that make you how do you self-identify when you are on soldierknowsbest calm you or list yourself as a YouTube partner which is you know it's yeah you remember the YouTube Partner Program but like when people ask you what do you do and you get done telling them about the your life and the reserves would you tell them do you say you're a gadget reviewer do you say that your YouTube personality do you say that you're a blogger vlogger what how do you what do you call yourself yeah I mostly go with you know you can say consumer tech journalists if you want to that's kind of like my official name but not really just means a syllable title title right but what I really do be somebody's like like I make youtube videos and I review a lot of consumer electronics from cell phones tablets computers and anything really consumer tech I just make video reviews of them and put the videos up on YouTube and that's that's a really good take at it then of course they have a lot more questions but how do you make money and all that stuff but that's usually what I say and that's really good conversation starter it really is but but there's no catch all to it like I've my mother you know who doesn't understand this business I like a lot of our parents tone well it was chasing after me for weeks after I got this job to tell me some kind of like elevator speech like the you that's a good elevator speech but there's there's no term that encapsulate SAT all you say blogger it's like what was that does that mean really am a blogger and that's even more confining so I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who can't boil it all down into the one word yeah I think a lot of people they see you think of vlogger they think of you know shaycarl somebody who's vlogging their everyday life right I really don't use that I just I'm where I'm a tech reviewer and make slides make video that's that's as easy i can get it now too I like it that's good I you mentioned in a QA you today do you still do these these q and A's on vocal or is that a one-time thing yeah well I uh I've been doing live shows for a long time I started off on Ustream and then I moved over to vocal because it was really easy for the question to ask for matt no that's something else I stopped because I got really busy in the summertime okay in just traveling but ya did that for about a year and a half maybe two years on vocal ustream I did you know I used to do like a 24 hour stream just like Chris Pirillo um so I've been doing it is still alive streams every Wednesday for the longest yeah really so I mean this I think I might have caught the last one that you did or it may not have been I'm not sure it was basically the first and only one I found chasing whatever length I was chasing and you mentioned in one particular vocal interview that you tend to review about five phones a year and you like to do more than five phones a year now you know we we only cover mobile a pocketknife so this really caught my interest where I was like why is that but why would you confine yourself to such a small portfolios because it gets repetitive or what well that's changed because it's been a lot of stuff and interesting phones that it came out especially this year so I I'm now reviewing a lot more than that but the main thing rise because you know yet the iphone once a year get the galaxy the note or really the s3 or s4 back then well s3 poverty back then um the next is you know and all these other phones which is changed over this year but back then i'll most of the phones are really just kind of playing catch up or just changing things just a little bit and it wasn't really that interesting to me because you know even now sometimes there's a new android phone out every single week a lot of them aren't really changing things you know to the point where I I want to confuse the consumer now or should I get this one or this one because it has this so yeah but it's a lot of time I let you know that they add 15 toggles to the notification shade i mean that's that's worth 10 videos right there right it's just kind of for it sometimes frustrating like i really love this android phone and then the next month it's always it's just it's a good thing and a bad thing ministers next one that kind of kicks that one off the pedestal and sometimes people forget about it but yeah it's just a lot of phones out and so by even now I'm starting to I got the the m1 in this one and the the G and then after that I want to really start focusing on a lot of this other tech that I have cool that's it's I've noticed that your mobile like investment has sort of experienced an uptick recently and that's been cool to say I I wonder what relationship that you have with some of these vendors we were talking to marques about this on the last VIP and he's in this position where he's actually buying a lot more now than he was before you're in a position where you don't review a lot of stuff that you don't like so I assume that means that you are buying more of your own stuff for review what's your I mean and yet we run into each other at events all the time so I mean what do you prefer do you would you rather get a review device for a menu sure would rather buy it yourself so that you don't feel like there's any implied you know any expectation of coverage yeah you know both to be honest with you I my whole have always done you know soldierknowsbest is that i I really don't wait on the manufacturing anybody at all if I see something I like I'm gonna go buy it if I never heard of it i'm gonna buy instead of waiting for whatever but i never really asked i probably twice soldierknowsbest I've asked a company hey I'm interested in this product you know if you have any review units I'll take one all the other times I like to put the company's to discover my content first and then shoot me that email or tweet go tweet or whatever and say hey you're interested in reviewing this and then I'm like cool you know you don't take payments for reviews anything like that but I like for that company to come to me and so it really is no explicit they know exactly what they're getting I don't have to sell myself because they already watched my videos and they liked it and they want to see me the product and I think it's going to be a win for both the company and myself with me not having to buy a product but to no not you know feeling obligated to say anything nice about it just because you know I want to make the company feel good or something right and one of the nice things about buying it yourself is that you get to do a genuine unboxing and sometimes if they're getting a review unit early the retail packaging won't be ready or whatever but I want to ask you about that you doing my research for this interview made me feel a little bit better actually because I thought for a while we were the only ones with this issue at pocket now where we will do a an unboxing video for a hot product and it'll get obscene amount of views and then we'll do a review a week later of that same product and it will get a twentieth of the viewers review you had an unboxing of the iphone 5s that guy that earned 1.3 million views and then the 5s review which I think was about two weeks later or so earned 177,000 views so what do tell me if this frustrate to you as much as it obviously frustrates me and if it doesn't or if it does tell me why what what are your thoughts on this ish is yeah so we're dynamic it's a weird dynamic what i think is mostly you know we the reason when you do an unboxing my best launch day and everybody is just go searching iphone they want to see it first they want to you know just really get the first glimpse of an online it didn't you know yeah yeah I'll do my review probably at least a week or sometimes two weeks later they think the bus is kind of died down a little bit so that's the only reason I could really explain that and but I've always told people that unboxings just really porn for geeks man you know you see somebody take out a box it's like opening a Christmas present for the first time and you know i watched unboxing videos and the same product that partner already have but i just it's just a feeling that I got just like watching the people hands on stuff is kind of great isn't that bizarre I mean you actually took the words out my mouth I was going to ask you if you sometimes feel like a gadget porn purveyor because sometimes that's that's what I do and when people ask me like sometimes if people are asking me what I do for my life and I really am feeling you know not like engaging them in that conversation I'm a gadget porn I'm they call me a reviewer but I'm a gadget point because yeah people love watching that screen protector come off and and all that stuff and I understand that but it is it really that um is it really a matter of time in terms of why the unboxings are so popular because their day of I I think so i think you know it's just kind of weird like a lot of people just aren't interested in tech reviews per se but they may be interested in just what are people talking about what's this I new iphone 5s they're talking about and so that first day I mean really at first couple days I'm pumping out a lot of videos you know cover in touch ID or covering or whatever out the cameras yeah and that those first three days I see a lot of views with those videos within yeah when I put my review out some reviews take off but some don't they can be a combination things could be search results how high up your show and all this other stuff and when you make that iphone review now when somebody searches iphone youtube that unboxing may be coming up first and then your review may be downloadable oh I've noticed that a couple times but yeah it's just Randall E you know sometimes youtube videos that I think may really take off they don't and the other ones that then how big a lot of you be interesting edges skyrock and I'm like okay it's amazing right yeah I know you just sit there kind of looking at it like well really okay I spent 10 hours crafting this one and then it's got this amount of you isn't it this thing was a throwaway on the day like whatever like Windows Phone for Instagram is yeah it's just bizarre how the internet works I'll of how that's completely unpredictable before we move on to to kind of I do want to talk a little bit about your relationship with with iOS but before I let this completely died I'm interested when you talk to normal people that's one thing maybe not normal people and you talk to everyday folks that's one thing when you are talking to your to your co-workers in terms of the reserves in terms of the military what what is it do they do they think it's cool I mean how are you perceived as like to do people get like high off being being internet next to somebody who's internet famous or what's what's the what's the story with that I mean you get recognized on the street and in your normal reserve work days and such well I got a funny story that but yeah obviously that I was with my friend Angie and we was celebrating her birthday with a few of our friends and went to this bar and you know so we were sitting there then all of a sudden I see everybody look up behind me and I turn around as his guys at standing behind me Thank something me I watching videos it's like what's up man I'm not my way to get ready to the fighters of it but yeah thnkx mansion oh man yeah and he knew exactly where I live cuz he stayed in the same place in the same building before it was kind of weird and my fridge was just like what but it was kind of like I was like I yeah I understand yeah yada yada yada but then actually later on that night it's like four o'clock in the morning i get a knock on my door and some like what yeah what the heck is going on i'm thinking okay so i'm gonna got my gun and you know I'm ready and there's some peace of God that delivers you know at this piece of that stays up two like I'll him or something anyway that's of one of the finest stores I tell people about getting recognized on the street is still weird but awesome at the same time like I'm still really flattered and somebody recognized my videos and no matter where I am but you know we're usually when I'm talking to my friends to get back to the original question but usually I'll talk to my friends or somebody and explaining what I do they just really interested like oh really how asked me the same questions you do you know how did you get started with it you know I'm you know how do you maintain it or you know then also how do you make money how you make a living off of it and is usually those same questions and I'm is to me so joy use of a skin those or answering those questions because a few my friends now have you to channels and they may be workout channels or maybe cooking channels but they have YouTube channels and I kind of give them advice on it so a lot of people just find it very interesting and then they start searching youtube for content and stuff when I tell people this usually something on YouTube that you'll probably like to watch where this epic meal time were my drunk kitchen or a beauty channel or a gaming history or anything like yeah now is it at what point did you realize that you were that you were a success that's kind of a lame question but like you come to a point where you're like okay I'm making enough money at this now where it's like I can quit my day job as you did but it mean do you remember an exact moment at which you were like wow this this could be the the major focus of my life I almost saves a couple moments I remember when Chris Pirillo he he recognized me really and I can't remember exactly what it was was internet in and it was but Chris Grillo someone that watched all the time and also hotel I'm member it was for an apple event maybe and I WWDC announcement of something like that but I was you streaming at the time and I had like a whole bunch of years like I had I came 100 over a hundred thousand stuff like that viewers and then someone I was like hey I saw you on you know leo laporte stream and so he was kind of just searching are you streaming he used on a live stream as well so who's this guy with except my hundred years cuz I have more views than him at that time and so I actually recorded that part it was like oh man he's doing something right and actually recorded that and say that to my computer because leo laporte patrick nord and all these other people are like you know superstars to me and when i when i started seeing them and kind of you know kind of seeing them just even looking at my stuff that else no they made me made me feel good that's a pretty profound moment there ya know I love that I've experienced the same thing at sort of press events where it's like about a year ago or sometime sitting down at a table and we're getting ready for a press briefing I kind of look next to him like oh wow there's that there's that person whose stuff I've been reading for ten years that's that's awesome that's fun I was kind of happiness like you just it snow is just kind of you know you just just realize one day okay this is what is meant for me to do and then if you just really work hard at it and you guess EF success it's just kind of something that's just a feeling that you get that it just kind of never goes away you put it exactly as I did I was a friend of mine had called me up and asked me to do a a theater project and he was a friend from my period my life when I was acting full-time and he and I was explaining to him why I couldn't do it because I you know it's busy with pocket now and I said almost exactly the same thing I'm like yeah listen I really think I think I'm it's hard to explain but I think I meant to do this right now I think that I'm really you know well suited for what I'm for what I'm up to at the moment and that's a nice feeling when you you feel like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing right yeah that's something that you know a lot of people don't get that opportunity you know for whatever you know life throws at you you know I look at all time is my military path took me this this way or I went with this unit you know I wouldn't have the opportunity to do this and so it's kind of like you gotta feel blessed that you're able to do something that you actually love a lot of people have to work just because they need the money and they have to do this particular job because nothing else but then you know a lot of it sometimes you get that every opportunity to see that opportunity to go ahead and take that chance and do whatever you really like to do and you got to just really be fortunate to go at it it's true that's awesome let's um now that we've gotten to the to the deep place let's let's talk a little bit about something narrower I want to ask you about your relationship with iOS hmm you had a great video a couple weeks back that was titled you use Apple you suck and it was a comment on I love it when people poke the fanboys I think that's a lot of fun when you kind of like rile up the extremists we're basically were commenting on this culture in our line of work that innately d values people who buy Apple products particularly in mobile and I wonder if if you could talk a little bit more about your relationship with that like how often do people show up in your comment feeds just like taking you down for using an iphone all the time and there's the people that see comment like all this guy reviews as Apple products I'm like these are we beam port android products like over a time period and and usually I I don't it's just kind of confusing there's this whole fanboy loyalty thing that I think people only associate fanboys with apple and I'm like dude I'd like to use degree deodorant I've been using degree deodorant for 10 years now straight A my degree fanboy I'll guess you can say that but is that really a bad thing and I'm not bashing everything other all the other daughters I just like to use what I'll know it's going to work for me and you drew another parallel to GTA 5 with people waiting in line and you're like well you're waiting in line you could pre-order this and get it 24 hours later but you're waiting in line so are you a a rock star fanboy and the call of duty people you know I wait for calling you out of line even though I can go in at nine o'clock at ten o'clock in morning as soon as it opens oh just go over walmart at any time and by it's just that if you really like something and your passion and you really excited for it it's not a bad thing and you know and I but a lot of people associated people waiting in line you know for Apple products s oh you're justjust I sheep and all this stuff but it just it just irks me the wrong way and a lot of people don't speak up and like I would speak up about it i don't care if these some android people maybe enjoy loyalists don't watch me now some people say they actually unsubscribe from me because of that I'm like okay but I'm gonna speak up for what I think is just ignorance it's just really stupid and make people realize that a lot of people who use Apple products they don't they don't care about Apple stock price they don't care about Android versus iOS I mean your mom your auntie your grandfather your brother and sister they probably have iPhones but three do they really actually watch youtube videos on iphone stuff most people don't they just use it because it fits their lifestyle and it works in the same day for Android the same thing for windows phone and all those other os's people use them because it works for them there's still people using blackberries now and you can mock them to make fun of them if you wanted to but they use it because it works for them and that's nothing wrong with it so that's the reasonable person's perspective yeah which I which I share but as you know we deal with a lot of irrationality on a day-to-day basis from from everyone and you get those people who are like apples unfollow but what what do you think is the source of that this has been something that's kind of been rolling over in my brain for for a long time where it's like yes you get people who hate on Android and Windows Phone and even get people who hate over blackberry but there doesn't seem to be the type of rage that exists in people who hate apple I mean these these people really really can't stand it and I wonder if you can speak to what do you think to be the source of that I think it's just the source of something that's very popular sometimes people if they see something that's really popular I know a lot of people that really like to Instagram well I'll say this man instagram was ios-only i know a lot of people were saying all only hipsters use that and all his other stuff but it second with Android it was fine and it's like I think people are kind of afraid of something that may be popular and something that they're not already using and this scared to kind of go see what it is because they don't want to seem like they're a follower or I sheep and I think that's best part of what it is that happens you know throughout our lives you know you see this you don't want to do something that's popular because you don't seem you're following other people but I've always said that Apple is a LeBron James attack you know you can't deny that the guy is good and have skill and it's really you know almost probably the best player you know in the league right now but there's a second people that just really hate LeBron James but whatever reason you know the athletes have done crazier stuff and I just always compare Apple to be in the Brawn Jane you can't deny that they're really good but only the people can do to really just talks trash about with visibility comes comes hatred and that Instagram example you gave was apt because for a long time Instagram wasn't on Windows Phone and that was the attitude in the Windows Phone camp was like anytime I wrote a piece about Instagram there's a guaranteed to be at least one person shows was a guy instagram well whatever and like what phone do you use Lumia 920 like okay I understand now that it's there it's like okay we're all kind of understand but whatever so that that's that's the Apple situation what about what if you were you carry a 5s is your daily driver right what if you were to carry something else you cannot carry an iphone at all what if you were forced to carry a device from another platform what would it be have you ever given any thought to that well you know um I i would say that actually now may I should made a video talking about switching to android because I was really loving android 4.4 kitkat is awesome I really love everything with that OS and I actually walk around with the Nexus 5 and iphone 5s now we're down one because i use i use google glass a lot now so it has my glass app and I could screen cast and all that stuff but to I just really love kik app but then I love the iphone 5ss camera more and I'd love it yes slightly better battery life than the nexus 5 which is amazing because I that's better isn't all that amazing himself but if I for what I'm safe here right now if I had to pick one phone it would it will probably be google play edition of the HTC One or they really get one which one which one would it be i would say i was i would say the HTC One I loved I loved that feel of it that aluminum feel it just feels awesome your hand so you'd be willing to sacrifice the the expandable battery and the removal letter is kind of water st for the build quality what you're used to that using a knife on me yeah yeah never you know really you know use that at all unless i mean i was testing out another device like this forward i had that capability but yeah I usually carry around a little mophie juice pack with me anyway in my car just in case my phone died so i think i'm fine with the battery issue and and that in the store its issue but and as the cloud gets more improved improve you know just store stuff up there it should be fine yeah it's it's funny how that was kind of insidious i did i found myself all of a sudden very cloud dependent but that's not the way i were to say i mean very yeah cloud present I suppose because all of a sudden I was switching between phones and my normal course of reviewing stuff I'm like wait I don't have to move any media I don't need a microSD card because all my stuff is on Spotify or it's on google play stuff or whatever yeah great convenient uh it's got so cool i like that that's about the answer I expected google play edition HTC One the google play edition was a nice nice twister and Stocking android is just easily the best yeah love it would you carry the Moto X um mmm no I mean I like it but I'll probably still choose a cc one uh-huh that's cool i i i dig i understand it would be it would be a tough choice for me too i mean i'm a moto x super fan but but i also love the one so let's um we got to start wrapping up here because we we each have other stuff to get to but I really want to return to a point we'd sort of brought up before um advice there are so many people out there now in the in the world who want to do what we do and there are a lot of people already doing what we do I said on a previous episode the VIP that I go to like CES or something we go to a press only event where these events are closed to everyone including like spouses and things like it's just press and there are literally thousands of people there covering technology so it's not the easiest field to get into anymore as it once was back in two thousand seven why all you had was a boy needed was a camera a youtube account so what what best practices would you advocate for people looking to get into it starting obviously with do what you love to do and let that show right yeah don't go after what you may think will make you the most money just really find a topic but no matter what is if it's just cameras focus just on cameras if it just cell phones or if it's pottery or whatever you know find that topic that you can talk a lot about and and you can be really passionate about and and your viewers will clean go on to that now they latch on do that because they say see you really like talking about what you like so they'll like listening to you you can really portray that and to just really don't don't worry about the money because it look it I did it for two and a half years before making any type of money so don't worry about the money some people will be able to make a living off of it some people won't you just have to get into it start doing what you alike and then you may not know final cut like I did but I found a way around it by using ScreenFlow it's a little bit easier for me you know keep working and your videos will get better and just put out whatever you have right now it may be crappy so what all everybody's a lot of popular youtubers you go back to the early videos or crappy just like mine but you have videos and you'll get better with your equipment you'll get better with your light and you get better with the audio you get better with everything and and how to talk in front of the camera and it's on you're going to do that by making videos on a consistent basis and so yeah that's basically just find something you love to talk about or make a video about and then just keep at it and if it's something you really want to do you'll find that your success may not be as big as some I elses but the success within yourself we're doing something that you really like to do it will be more than enough absolutely and do you ever consider branching out to two different media I mean YouTube is obviously or your bread and butter I mean I mean do you have do you use other video networks vimeo and things of that sort I'm not for my YouTube not for my tech stuff that's something that I probably should be doing but I revision3 so they they push out my content or a lot of the different networks like AOL and then add videos and like the Virgin Atlantic flight and stuff so then that work really takes you know take a band it takes takes advantage of all those other different opportunities forming them really gracious for that but yeah I'm open to branch out to basically anything and with this new year coming that hopefully we'll be able to take advantage some of that stuff that's awesome I I do hope to see you there and do you ever do I'm like audio only podcast we have our antique pocket net weekly which I insist remain audio only even though we have a lot of hangout base series do you ever do ever guessed on audio podcast I guess so anything yeah I'll do like I barely turned out anything so yeah I'll do audio only I do no matter what it would be it would be awesome if you would join us at some point on the on the pocket met weekly if you could we should we should coordinate because we'd love to have your your impressions on the news of the week and maybe we can get a debate go and get some of our some of our iOS fans android fans Windows Phone fans we could have a big kerfuffle on the air example debate people what used to watch my live show they do out over the debate I love trying to shut people down on topics and I get into base of my friends all the time it's fun but yeah I'm ready for I'm game for it good well then good and then hopefully this won't be the last time we we see on unpacking now i want to i want to thank you for for joining us this was this was great i know it took a little doing in terms of our respective schedules but thank you for putting the time aside to talk to us and to our viewers and i hope you had a good time because i'd certainly did as well i did too man thanks for having me on two things for everybody for watching us tell tell everyone where they can find you on the internet if they don't watch your videos and you should watch this video thank you find on youtube youtube com force last soldierknowsbest is do a google search that you'll find of a bunch of my videos and on Instagram and just mark watson that's my real name I love a lot of Instagram and on twitter is soldier know best take the s off in the nose because I ran out of characters I'm scared it's gonna be my last question so that's what ran out of characters yeah I checked all every once in a while to see Twitter extended that limit just a little bit but yeah sucks well definitely follow that soldier know best on Twitter soldierknowsbest everywhere else and once again Martin thank you for being with us and a problem at thanks man folks you can also follow pocket now officially at pocket now on twitter as pocket now on instagram facebook and google+ you can follow me at captain two phones its captain the number two phones if you enjoy the pocket now VIP please come back watch another one pocket out weekly is there for you every week and i'm a reverse pocket now daily is there for you all the time you can email us if you have a question about any of our VIP series at podcast at pocketnow.com thanks for watching everyone and we will see you next time