During This Week in Startups today we offered folks the ability to donate to the show... and boy did they! are monthly subscriptions to independent media the future?
My friend used the "I'm doing this for a living, so pay me" model, which has worked out very well for him. He was a radio talk show broadcaster and after one more format change (after CBS sold off stations to Alpha Broadcasting) and decided to found a subscription version of his same show. Two to three hours of show every week day for $7/mo. He had 500 paying subscriptions in the first day and has been making enough to pay himself, his co-host, production costs, leasing an office and building a studio in it, an assistant/booker, and pay all of the royalties (BMI, ASCAP, etc).
I'm undecided which model is truly the best, however. Purely ad or donation based content will surely acquire a much larger audience, but is that worth anything other than ego-stroking, if you can make the same living off of a couple thousand people willing to pay you to do what you do? Of course, it's likely a different proposition to take someone and ask them to do what they do for a profession for free (or donations, etc) versus taking someone who is doing it as a hobby or a starter project and looking to build up from there.
Adam Curry and Dvorak do the "donate" thing with the caveat that "as long as you keep making it worth our while, we'll keep making content". Of course, something like one percent of their listeners actually contribute (but boy, they contribute a lot). I tend to adhere more to the idea that you only ned a small number of true fans to support you and you can just cater to them. If you get the same income either way, then it seems the only benefit of a massive audience that mostly doesn't pay is that you can hopefully springboard that into a paying gig somewhere on a big time site or in some form of traditional media.
I wonder how many of those people thought they were donating to Leo Laporte, due to the sleazy use of the "This Week In . . . " branding for a similar network doing similar content in a similar medium.
1. This Week In Whatever is used all over the place both pre and post twit.tv foundation. I myself used to watch a show called this week in nascar (by all means feel free to stereotype me if its easier for you). I dont recall them crying like babies when "this week in tech" asked for donations "omg twit.tv is leveraging on TWIN sucess and our fans will be tricked by donating to a dif show".
2. Leo Laporte is a pro, has natural talent, and does his own thing surrounded by friends. He revolves his thing around his audience with which he has deep feedback (irc/forums/twitter/blog/general openness). There is a community there. TWIT.tv is a living and very active organism. He aims at a professional artisan feel. He knows where he's going (vihart, jeri ellsworth etc) and how knowledge needs to be presented. His network has SOUL. Its a real NET which WORKS.
I'll skip commenting on ThisWeekIn.com because they have people getting paid for years to get right what i (or anyone that, hint, understands how products need audiences as much as audiences need products) could type in a few lines. I dont enjoy speeding up slow trainwrecks. They have a few human pearls in that train of mediocrity. Ever wished the best for something you know wont have it?
3. Leo Laporte is not a perfect human being (shocking, i know), and thus, everytime some random crosswind, specific temperature, prelunch hunger and skype-a-saurus radiation combine in rare yet periodic event, this causes spasms of accute calcanittis. This makes awesome human Leo become less awesome human Leo, ranting to his audience as if they were lemmings (dimishing your audience is a nice way to build an audience of dumb people). Fed from his frustration they spam for years anything remotely thisweekin.com related. Almost making it look as if both networks were in same championship (something only @Jason wants to believe). Counter productive.
with this being said, if you donated to @Jason TWIST show (which existed way before thisweekin.com foundation) thinking you were giving money to Leo Laporte, then "you" are a complete imbecile.
TWIST has enough of a fanbase without having to misrepresent who and what they are (it's not like Leo owns 'This Week in...')
As for 'sleazy', I think even Jason himself would admit that of all the things he's done, this is pretty low on the list of things that could be accused of sleaziness.
1. 3 of Leo's shows were named This Week In when I bought the domain. 17 were named like MacBreak Weekly or other naming conventions.
2. I offered Leo the domain before I bought it--he told me he wanted me to buy it and he didn't want to waste the money.
3. I offered Leo to split the purchase of the domain--he declined.
4. Leo said go for it 5x on the air and in email.
5. I offered leo to use the domain as a directory of all the TWI named shows in the world.
6. Despite all that I still regret doing it because I lost the friendship with Leo.
7. I hope we can resolve the issue, but Leo has not been willing to discuss that.
[+] [-] rrhoover|15 years ago|reply
I actually wrote a short blog post about this model and twistlist.co a few hours ago: http://ryanhoover.me/post/4768633874/please-take-my-money-mr... /unashamedplug
[+] [-] pstack|15 years ago|reply
I'm undecided which model is truly the best, however. Purely ad or donation based content will surely acquire a much larger audience, but is that worth anything other than ego-stroking, if you can make the same living off of a couple thousand people willing to pay you to do what you do? Of course, it's likely a different proposition to take someone and ask them to do what they do for a profession for free (or donations, etc) versus taking someone who is doing it as a hobby or a starter project and looking to build up from there.
Adam Curry and Dvorak do the "donate" thing with the caveat that "as long as you keep making it worth our while, we'll keep making content". Of course, something like one percent of their listeners actually contribute (but boy, they contribute a lot). I tend to adhere more to the idea that you only ned a small number of true fans to support you and you can just cater to them. If you get the same income either way, then it seems the only benefit of a massive audience that mostly doesn't pay is that you can hopefully springboard that into a paying gig somewhere on a big time site or in some form of traditional media.
[+] [-] pstack|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nunomaia|15 years ago|reply
2. Leo Laporte is a pro, has natural talent, and does his own thing surrounded by friends. He revolves his thing around his audience with which he has deep feedback (irc/forums/twitter/blog/general openness). There is a community there. TWIT.tv is a living and very active organism. He aims at a professional artisan feel. He knows where he's going (vihart, jeri ellsworth etc) and how knowledge needs to be presented. His network has SOUL. Its a real NET which WORKS. I'll skip commenting on ThisWeekIn.com because they have people getting paid for years to get right what i (or anyone that, hint, understands how products need audiences as much as audiences need products) could type in a few lines. I dont enjoy speeding up slow trainwrecks. They have a few human pearls in that train of mediocrity. Ever wished the best for something you know wont have it?
3. Leo Laporte is not a perfect human being (shocking, i know), and thus, everytime some random crosswind, specific temperature, prelunch hunger and skype-a-saurus radiation combine in rare yet periodic event, this causes spasms of accute calcanittis. This makes awesome human Leo become less awesome human Leo, ranting to his audience as if they were lemmings (dimishing your audience is a nice way to build an audience of dumb people). Fed from his frustration they spam for years anything remotely thisweekin.com related. Almost making it look as if both networks were in same championship (something only @Jason wants to believe). Counter productive.
with this being said, if you donated to @Jason TWIST show (which existed way before thisweekin.com foundation) thinking you were giving money to Leo Laporte, then "you" are a complete imbecile.
[+] [-] dansingerman|15 years ago|reply
TWIST has enough of a fanbase without having to misrepresent who and what they are (it's not like Leo owns 'This Week in...')
As for 'sleazy', I think even Jason himself would admit that of all the things he's done, this is pretty low on the list of things that could be accused of sleaziness.
[+] [-] jasonmcalacanis|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] maethorechannen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NZ_Matt|15 years ago|reply
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