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Some may assume that the number-one technology radio show online, System Showdown, was born as a response to its long-time rival for listeners, The Sports Docket, or so that Kwass can show his “versatility” by doing a second show which has no relation at all to sports. Either way, or possibly due to a completely different way, System Showdown has become extremely well-known as one of the most popular technology shows on the internet radio network BlogTalkRadio.

System Showdown, casually referred to as Showdown, began with an amazing pair of hosts: Jon Scheiber and Ethan Kwassman. Jon, playing the role of “the Mac guy” or “the deranged Mac fanatic,” is keen in displaying his tremendous Mac like insight at various points during our many live episodes. Kwass, playing the role of the “the PC guy” or the “lunatic Windows user,” bashes Apple for the expensive prices they place on their products during just about every show, but usually gets shutdown as Jon makes Kwass fall-in-love with Apple’s revolutionary products, and see them for what they’re worth. The dynamic duo were temporarily joined by Zeeshan Mughal, who had to leave the panel once he began college at Stonybrook University, advocated the free market, open-source, and anything and everything related to PC’s archenemy and Mac’s distant-cousin, Linux.

System Showdown, usually associated with the rhythmic phrase “System Showdown with Kwass and Jon,” made its official debut on Friday, May 18, 2007 at 5:30 p.m. with a 30-minute show. Their first one-hour show on June 1, 2007 was quite a spectacle, with not only being their 3rd episode on BTR, but also having Arnold Kim, founder of the extremely popular MacRumors.com website, joining the hosts on the show. In that episode, Showdown picked up 18 Live Listeners, and 5 callers into the program. Since then, Showdown has accumulated over 15 more episodes, as they air weekly on Tuesday nights. Due to the busy schedule of the hosts, every Tuesday night is not a guarantee, so they do some spot shows here and there.

One major segment that has become a hit on System Showdown is “The Digg Effect.” This is where Kwass and Jon discuss in detail stories that they have personally “Dugg” on their profiles over at the extremely popular social news website, Digg (with a double “g,” yo!). Hey, if Kevin Rose or Alex Albrecht happen to stop by this page, don’t worry. We don’t do a mock-up of your popular podcast, Diggnation. We have different intro music and everything. This segment began with Kwass & Jon discussing five stories or more from their website, but eventually it has become a segment where the hosts begin to discuss one story, then get sidetracked, and you know where it goes from there. But, it’s all good fun. Another popular segment is “Techno Throwdowns”, where Kwass & Jon battle it out between Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS, and discuss in-depth one program or app (as Jon refers to it).

With Ethan Kwassman, from Brooklyn and Jon Scheiber, from Queens, New York; rotating duties on the switchboard monitoring commercial breaks, this dynamic duo presents an interesting conversation for their fans. Kwass, with his conservative Windows ways, comes around most of the time to realize the “creativity” of apps for the Macintosh, and Jon, comes around to see that Microsoft really isn’t that “evil” as he think they are, or maybe not. Some big technology products have been released during the establishment of Showdown, which had both of the hosts salivating over them. They include the MacBook Air, Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, iPod touch, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Silverlight (only Kwass on that one), Microsoft Surface, Windows Vista (that was a lot of fun), and countless others.

On average, Showdown has about 17 live listeners and 125 listeners on the archived segments. In fact, from episode 9 to episode 11 in which the hosts talked about the release of Mac OS X Leopard, Microsoft Silverlight, and the new Microsoft Zune MP3 players, they totaled 60 listeners. A big part of Showdown’s listenership is due to the caliber of the guests Kwass and Jon have had on the show including:

• Arnold Kim, founder of MacRumors.com (which was our first big interview).
• Ray Hansen, co-creator of the Blendtec “Will It Blend?” videos.
• Peter Furia of the “Mac or PC” Rap video.
• Mary Jo Foley of the “All About Microsoft” blog on ZDNet.
• Brandon Harris Walker of “Chinese Food on Christmas.”
• Rick Savoia of “The Force Field” podcast.
• Douglas Bell, of the “phpBB Weekly” and now-retired “PreviewCast” podcasts.
• Daniel Brusilovsky of “The Apple Universe” podcast.
• Bwana McCall, of Bwana.org and Bwana.tv.
• Patrick O’Keefe, author of the book “Managing Online Forums.” (Twice!)
• Kevin Middleton, also known as the YouTube personality JewishDOOD.
• Adrian Bacon of the “Apple News Log” podcast.
• Michael Krigsman of the “IT Project Failures” blog on ZDNet.com.
• Jeffrey Powers of “Geekazine”.
• Penn Masala, creators and singers of “The Facebook Skit.”

and countless others, ranging from the super well-known to the average techie to the deranged lunatic, have came on and called in to share their insight with Kwass & Jon, as well as tell the world about their blogs/podcasts/songs/videos/whatever they do and do well.

If you want to call into the next episode of Showdown, make sure we’re live and dial (646) 478-5187 or chat with the hosts via AOL Instant Messenger during the show at their screennames ShowdownKwass or ShowdownJon. If you’re a business, company, organization, or individual who would like to be advertised on Showdown, or just have a general inquiry for the hosts, email us at showdown@myedimedia.com.