VF Conversations: Adrian Simple, The Gaming Observer‍

Bio:‍
Currently residing in Toronto, Canada, Adrian Simple is a full-time student at Ryerson University. When he's not studying or attending classes, he's busy working on his successful flash briefing show The Gaming Observer. Every day for the last year, Adrian has been broadcasting gaming news to thousands of eager listeners worldwide. Daily news is provided Monday through Friday, with weekends set aside for special episodes.

The popularity of the show has increased drastically since its inception. Today, it is the #1 rated news skill in the US and UK (4.9/5 stars), while holding down the #2 spot in Canada. In the past year and a half, the show has garnered more than 500,000 plays.

After graduating, Adrian hopes to transition The Gaming Observer into a full-time job.

The show is available on Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung Bixby.
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Description:
Adrian Simple, founder and host of The Gaming Observer, brings you informed and analytical video game reporting right to your smart speaker each day. He keeps his popular flash briefings short and sweet while delivering knowledgable and diverse gaming content for all ages.
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Transcript

0:00 - 0:39 - Introduction
So my name is Adrian simple - I'm currently based out of Toronto, Canada. My show  is called the gaming observer. I talk every single day for three to five minutes through an Alexa flash briefing - and it is also available on Google and on Bixby - and essentially I just cover the news.

Every single day I go through the headlines, I pick my favourites, and then I talk into a microphone telling you about, you know, the various things that are happening in the video game world.  It's really easy to find if you just type in The Gaming Observer. You can also find it at thegamingobserver.com. I'm really just trying to, you know, share in the passion of video games, have a good time, and, explore everything that's going on in that world.

039 - 1:22 - What motivates you to create TGO on a personal level? 
Creating for my own goals - you know, it's been in ways that I didn't expect. So I started my show just because I thought it was interesting and I thought it would be fun to do. But then now I'm at a point where I have people coming out saying how I've influenced their lives.

For example, I had one father who was not really all that into video games, but his son really was. And so he started listening to my show and then he said, 'hey, you know, it's thanks to you that I'm able to connect further with my son'. And so I realized that my goals now are to just connect with people and have these very real relationships with my listeners. And now that that goal is happening, like voice is the reason that I can get so personal with my listeners and why they think or why they feel like they have a friend talking to them.

1:23 - 2:00 - Talk about your experience switching to Voiceflow
So with the Alexa flash briefing, there is...unless you want to pay for another service, there is a lot of technicalities involved with that that I had to learn for the first time. And then when it came to porting that over to something like Google, it involved a lot more knowledge than I actually had.

And then, so going to Voiceflow, I knew that even if I had an idea for something, I could maybe plan it out through their system and then be able to execute it. Just seeing the very easy block that says, hey, this is how you play an audio file: you click it and then you click export and you're done. It was very easy, and it was awesome.