Editing The Pen Addict 361/transcript (section)

== Fountain Pens Online ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's great. But it's terrible. It's bad. It's bad. So, Dan, when did you decide that I want to talk about fountain pens on the internet? Because that's how I first heard of Dan Smith at a site called FP Geeks. So I had the Pen Addict blog. And, you know, you're always, you know, when you're writing online, you're always trying to find more people who do the same type of things online. And then FP Geeks popped up. And that's how I heard about you. So what made you go from just learning about fountain pens, using fountain pens, to say, hey, I'm going to share some things online about fountain pens?

'''Dan Smith:''' Yeah. So I met all kinds of people on FPN. And there was someone there. We thought, you know, we could maybe do a forum that was run a little bit differently, you know, where there was room for improvement. And so FP Geeks actually started as another message board. Okay. And shortly after that, we created a blog and we did a lot of giveaways to get people interested in the message board. And so after the giveaways, we kind of didn't really know what to do with the blog. And it sat there for a little while. And one day when I was looking, trying to find out new releases, I realized that there was no one website where you could go and see all the new products from all the different brands. I mean, you could always go to a retailer's website, but you're only going to find out about the new stuff they carry. And so that's really where the idea for, you know, the core of FP Geeks came from is we wanted to share all new products from all new brands. And after that, it just snowballed into reviews and podcasts and videos and pen shows. And yeah, it just went from there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What did you think about that at the time that you could take this most analog of writing instrument and have this wide ranging discussion online, not just in words on a message board, but, you know, you could share news and information and could, you know, create podcasts or videos of the things you were doing. And like, how into all of that type of creation were you at the time?

'''Dan Smith:''' Well, when it first started, very little. I mean, it was just step by step. It was really just sharing, hey, this is new. Check this out. And the feedback we got was incredible. We were like, holy cow, people actually love this. And so then it was, you know, people had questions about certain pens that we use and we're like, OK, well, let's start doing reviews. And I really enjoyed getting into that analytical side of the pen itself, you know, how it writes, how it's made, how it feels. And then the whole video process and editing that was new. And I just loved every step of it along the way and always continue to get really good feedback.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I, oh, you said it earlier when you were describing what FP Geeks was. I always told people like for new release and new information, like that's where you wanted to go. Because that's not something that I ever covered, like, you know, the new products, like every company's new products. Y'all were always like pumping out like all the releases. Like you could just go to FP Geeks and like find all the new information out there, which I always thought was cool and like a very good resource for that type of thing. What was your what was your favorite thing about that FP about that FP Geeks era? Because that's like the blog doesn't exist anymore, but the message board lives on. But like what what did you enjoy the most about that time, you know, working with FP Geeks and, you know, having that site become so popular?

'''Dan Smith:''' Oh, wow. Really just the community that that built up around it, not only just online, but in person, because we did a number of shows where we would go and, you know, report from the show and try and bring that show experience online. I forgot about that. Yeah. To let people know that, hey, that, you know, there's this is actually happening in the world world. You need to get to one of these things because, you know, who would have guessed? Right. You know, even today I tell people I'm going to a pen show and they're like, what?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Dan Smith:''' So, no, it was great. And I've met so many people through that and built so many relationships that that was really the best part out of all of that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. How long did FP Geeks last, if you can recall? Oh, wow. Three or four years, something like that. I mean, like I said, the message board still lives on, but the blog. Right. It was probably close to four years. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And that's your your your last statement in the part. I forgot about how you'd visit pen shows and like do like this on site report thing like this. These this news guy from the from the pen show. I totally forgot about that, but that's perfect. Like, what was your first pen show? Like, how did you go? How did you decide to attend your first pen show and see what that's all about?

'''Dan Smith:''' So I know it was Chicago, but I can't remember if it was 2011 or 2012.

'''Dan Smith:''' And we just went just to go check this out to see what a pen show was.

'''Dan Smith:''' And then after that, I mean, I think the next year we we hit three or four. And the year after that, we you know, we did the same. I mean, we were addicted, really.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' What do you recall what you thought about that first pen show? Because I remember my first pen show. I think it was Atlanta. It was either 2011 or 2012. It was definitely Atlanta. But I remember just the difference between year one and year two, where year one was like such a blur. My first ever pen show is like, yeah, it happened. And I was there, but it was just so overwhelming. And I couldn't figure it out until like year two was like, OK, I've got the flow now. Do you remember what it was like that first time?

'''Dan Smith:''' I remember thinking this is insane. You know, we can completely overwhelmed.

'''Dan Smith:''' Yeah. And it was just a blur. I mean, there were so many pens. You just you couldn't spend enough time and look at all of them. Right.