2016 was another huge year for Antlion Audio and we wanted to share our highlights and whatever crazy things we did in a gigantic end of the year recap!
The ModMic 5
Ok, so obviously the biggest event is also the most recent. We launched the ModMic 5! Our focus with the ModMic 5 was squarely on improving cable management and offering more options with a single unit via the dual mic mode. The ModMic 5 is a huge step forward that will let us do a lot of interesting things in 2017 and beyond.
We talked about the process with the founder and inventor, Mr. Jimmy:
We also recently made a post about some FAQs we keep getting, here.
New Website, New Photography, New Video!
We love the fact our beginnings are humble. No venture capital or spin-off from some evil corporation, but as we grew we began to see the need for something a little more advanced than a free template modified by our (amazing) team that has no real HTML knowledge. So with the help of Monumental here in Portland, several photographers, and DW Studios in the UK we created an entirely new site with new photographs and a new product trailer!
Here’s some behind-the-scenes shots of the photo shoot!
Voice Activated, The Antlion Audio Podcast
It took DAYS to agree on a name, but in June we finally launched our monthly podcast. Our goal for the show is to talk about communications, games, and game developers in a lively, off the cuff, style. Our first show was pretty rough, but as you can hear, we’re finally getting our legs under us. We’re even on iTunes now! We’ll be looking to expand our Podcast format in 2017 and continue to push the quality forward with interesting new guests.
Some of the rejected names for Voice Activated:
- Push to Talk
- ModMic’d Up
- Sound Off
- Play'd On Loop
- Space to Jump
- Voice Activation
Yep… some of them were terrible.
Volunteer Days
We’ve always been big on volunteering at Antlion, but we never made it an “official” thing until 2016. We had a simple idea: Let's take a regular workday, just 1 day every 3 months, pay everyone like they’re working, but give back to the local community. Our first event was so fun we started inviting others from the local tech, gaming, and business community to join our mission.
We’re really proud to say our effort in 2016 donated hundreds of man-hours to both Free Geek and the Oregon Food Bank, and had guest stars like Crit.tv (Formerly Tek Syndicate), eXtv, 1upTV, StumptGamers, the soon-to-be-open Outrage e-sports bar, FYM Hotsauce, and of course the staff here at Antlion. We look forward to continuing and expanding our guest list in 2017. I’ve recently heard from Vieparlafoi as well, who’s looking to join us in 2017 and is bound to make our group a lot prettier.
Local in the Portland area and want to join in volunteering? Hit us up.
Now Sponsors of Anxiety Gaming
A win-win situation came out of PAX after our meeting with Anxiety Gaming. See, the problem is any dollar we spend on a charity we love is a dollar we don’t spend spreading the word about Antlion, but what if we found a group of gamers we could help financially support, spread the word about our product, but are also doing good for the gaming community? Well, we believe Anxiety is the first of hopefully many of such groups for us.
Anxiety Gaming helps gamers suffering from anxiety, depression and other mental health problems by providing a wide variety of services. First, they offer a positive gaming community you can join, one that is specifically not toxic. Second, they offer immediate online help from a professional at any time you’re feeling overwhelmed. Third, they offer to help find you local help from a therapist in your area. They’ll help navigate insurance and even help or completely cover the costs. You may need only the first step or you may need all three, but the flexibility of the solution mixed with the social aspect of gaming got us really excited. That’s why the odds are, when you get online help, the therapist at the other end will be using a ModMic. It isn’t the Antlion Healing Station for nothing!
Find out more at www.AnxietyGaming.com
Sponsorships of Personalities
When it comes to sponsoring channels or teams we want to be careful of one thing. First, that this person actually loves their ModMic. We don’t want someone shilling us because we wrote them a check, and we make sure our partners do not hide our sponsorship. Lucky for us, finding people who love our product hasn’t been too hard!
It has been a great experience to get to work with some of our favorite Twitch and Youtube personalities this year, so special thanks to our 2016 partners:
Also a special thanks to AYBO’s Baselan Events and Hitbox’s Olympus, which we both proudly sponsored.
New Distribution
We also welcomed two new partners to our distribution family: Gigaparts in the US and Versus in Spain.
Gigaparts is particularly interesting because their primary hope for the ModMic is a greater entrance into ham radio. As such we’re researching ways the ModMic can play better with ham radio sets and hope to continue to find new and unique ways our little product can serve a wider audience. We’ll be attending hamvention (continue reading after you stop laughing at the name) this year in Dayton, OH to help facilitate our understanding, technical knowledge, and market expansion into this brave new world.
Of course we hope Versus will do well as our first dedicated distribution partner in Spain too! Viva Espania!
No Shave No-Remember!
To close on a lighter note, three Antlion staff participated in No-Shave November, but sadly we forgot to post the pics and by the time we realized it, it was well into December! So, here they are… better late than never we say!
James "Funyun or Bunyan?" Pella, host of Voice Activated
"Grumblejack" Joe Lieberman, The Marketing Guy
Eli "Scruff is Enough" Wisnievitz, The Boss