Matthew "Mat" Taylor, better known by his channel's name Techmoan, is a

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influe ...

and

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

ger active since May 2009, featuring consumer tech reviews and

retrotech Retrocomputing is the use of older computer hardware and software in modern times. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardw ...

documentaries about technology of historical interest. Apart from reviews and tests, Taylor's videos often include disassembling (and repairing when possible) products and, in the case of older technology, reporting on the product's history and reception via references in publications of the time. For audio and entertainment devices this is often ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' magazine, which at the time covered both consumer and trade electronics devices through articles and old advertisements. Bonus outro skits often feature a trio of muppet-like puppets, parodying YouTube viewer comments. Taylor's videos have been referenced by sites such as The A.V. Club,

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite '' io9'', w ...

Hackaday ''Hackaday'' is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs. History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web maga ...

El Español ''El Español'' is a Spanish online newspaper which started in 2015. It has its headquarters in Avenida de Burgos, 16D, 7º, Madrid, Comunidad de Madrid. History In 2014 Pedro J. Ramírez was dismissed as the director from the newspaper '' El ...

and print publications such as

Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...

and

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

. By ratings on

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news news aggregator, aggregation, Review site#Rating site, content rating, and Internet forum, discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") subm ...

MarketWatch MarketWatch is a website that provides financial information, business news, analysis, and stock market data. Along with ''The Wall Street Journal'' and '' Barron's'', it is a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, a property of News Corp. His ...

listed the

YouTube Channel YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

6th in its " binge-watching" top ten. Current product reviews on miscellaneous tech items, mainly on consumer products like action and dashcams, sometimes sponsored or donated, participating in the

affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process. It is a form of ...

associates program of

Amazon Services This is a list of products and services offered by American corporation Amazon. Retail goods Amazon product lines include ( books, DVDs, music CDs, videotapes, and software), apparel, baby products, consumer electronics, beauty products, ...

LLC, and a

Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a com ...

membership, are how the channel is funded.

History

In 2006, Taylor started a YouTube channel called "Vectrexuk", with videos of similar tech items like installing a home cinema and controlled toasters "just to prove a point that people will watch anything on YouTube". The channel "Techmoan" started on 31 May 2009, uploading a tour of a 2009

Piaggio MP3 The Piaggio MP3 (''Moto Piaggio a 3 ruote'', "Piaggio moto with 3 wheels") is a tilting three-wheeled scooter by Italian manufacturer Piaggio. First marketed in 2006, it is noted for its combination of two front wheels and a single rear wheel. ...

, taken at

480p 480p is the shorthand name for a family of video display resolutions. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non- interlaced. The ''480'' denotes a vertical resolution of 480 pixels, usually with a horizontal resolution of 640 pixels and 4:3 a ...

and very basic sound quality. For additional non-tech videos, in 2015 he started another channel, called the "Youtube Pedant". In a 2016 video covering the D-VHS format, he uncovered a 1080i video of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

filmed in 1993. This footage was uploaded separately to his "Youtube Pedant" channel where as of December 2022, it has gained 6.6 million views as well as being shared widely on sites such as

and

The Verge ''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts. The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media' ...

. As of March 2022, the main channel has over 1.2 million subscribers and over 277 million views. His videos often get millions of views, and his video on the Nixie watch has had more than 5 million views.

Later documentary videos

Documentary videos about forgotten

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use mag ...

recording formats show the OMNI Entertainment System which used

8-track tape The 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8; commonly called eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, and eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology that was popular from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when the compact cassette, whi ...

storage, the HiPac, a successor of the PlayTape and related applications of it. Other videos show some of the smallest and largest analog recording tape cartridges ever made like the

Picocassette Picocassette is an audio storage medium introduced by Dictaphone in collaboration with JVC in 1985. The Picocassette was introduced to compete with the Microcassette, introduced by Olympus Corporation, Olympus, and the Mini-Cassette, by Philips ...

for dictation machines or Cantata 700 background music system. Further videos show other former quarter-inch-tape cartridge formats like the

Sabamobil Sabamobil was a magnetic tape audio cartridge format made by SABA that came to the market in 1964. It used already-available four-track ¼ inch tape on 3-inch reels (7.62 cm), with two mono channels per side, using a tape speed of 3¾ ips (9.5 ...

which used existing 3-inch open reels for mobile use, and the portable Sanyo Micro Pack 35, as well as the

RCA tape cartridge The RCA tape cartridge is a magnetic tape audio format that was designed to offer stereo quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape recording quality in a convenient format for the consumer market. It was introduced in 1958, following four years of develop ...

and the Sony

Elcaset Elcaset is a short-lived sound reproduction, audio format jointly developed by Sony, Panasonic, and Teac in 1976, building on an idea introduced 20 years earlier in the RCA tape cartridge. In 1976, it was widely felt that the compact cassette w ...

with another compromise of playtime and sound quality, oddities and gimmicks on

Compact Cassette The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Otten ...

s as "reinventing the reel", several ways of autoreverse, automatic multiple cassette players, endless loop cassettes, and cassette mass production technology. Documentary on formats of vinyl recording show the Tefifon endless cartridge, or the

Seeburg 1000 The Seeburg 1000 Background Music System is a phonograph designed and built by the Seeburg Corporation to play background music from special 16 RPM vinyl records in offices, restaurants, retail businesses, factories and similar locations. Seeburg ...

background music system, vertical turntables, and other audio encodings CX and dbx for noise reduction on vinyl analog recording. Other documentaries show the mechanical

Curta calculator The Curta is a hand-held mechanical calculator designed by Curt Herzstark. It is known for its extremely compact design: a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand. It was affectionately known as the "pepper grinder" or "peppermi ...

, devices with

Nixie tube A Nixie tube ( ), or cold cathode display, is an electronic device used for displaying numerals or other information using glow discharge. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes, shaped like numerals or other symbol ...

displays,

wire recording Wire recording or magnetic wire recording was the first magnetic recording technology, an analog type of audio storage in which a magnetic recording is made on a thin steel wire. The first crude magnetic recorder was invented in 1898 by Val ...

, and the WikiReader.

In popular culture

Techmoan was referenced in a '' Dennis & Gnasher'' Unleashed strip in

Beano Beano may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Beano, another name for the American version of Bingo, a game of chance * Beano, a character on the American television sitcom ''Out of This World'' * ''The Beano'', a British children's comic featuri ...

, with Dennis referring to Techmoan as "total Dad-Tube".

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.techmoan.com
Techmoan - Not the 10th Anniversary Show
with an about introduction YouTube channels launched in 2009 Comedy YouTubers Technology YouTubers Living people English puppeteers Year of birth missing (living people) English male YouTubers

History

Later documentary videos

In popular culture

See also

References

External links