One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com
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A shame. Automatic was, a few years back, a regular sponsor of The Talk Show [a very popular podcast], and their diagnostic dingus, app, and service were all excellent. (Their last episode as a sponsor the November 2016 post-election โHoliday Partyโ with Merlin Mann.)
Automatic seemed like a good idea, but that it seemed to work okay and that they werenโt bought out tells me there wasnโt a lot of business to be done there. Guess most folks get by, like me, with a cheap ODB2 device with Bluetooth and a free app.
You know how podcasts all seem to have the same sponsors? You know how theyโre all those โdirect-to-consumerโ brands? Iโd heard when Casper wanted to go public that at least Casper was in trouble, but it looks like itโs an endemic (?) problem with most DTC brands.
Why? Venture capital. The investors are demanding huge returns, and thatโs moving the companies away from sustainable business models around their original missions and turning them into much more complex - and risky - beasts, with the hope that one of those beasts will be a unicorn. (Iโve railed on venture capital before here.)
Hereโs the most damning quote from an interesting and thorough article on the subject from Medium:
โThe economics work better if Casper sent you a mattress for free, stuffed with $300,โ jabbed NYU Stern marketing professor and tech doomsayer Scott Galloway.
Thatโs not good. Theyโre hemorrhaging money. And itโs clear Casper isnโt alone. Theyโre just the one who had to show us their finances. And when the venture capitalist marketing cash dries up, I can think of one medium in particular thatโs gonna feel it: podcasts. Borrowed time, man. You podcasters are on borrowed time.
You've got a personal blog. You post written compositions there.
You have a podcast. Maybe a few podcasts. You contribute to them. You release new episodes.
Your podcast has its own RSS feed. If I like it, I'll subscribe. If I don't subscribe, I don't want to see your podcast releases in my RSS reader.
Your blog has its own RSS feed. If I like it, I'll subscribe. If I don't subscribe, I don't want to see your blog in my podcast backlog.
Can you imagine having every one of your blog posts in your podcast feed? No. No you can't. At least not in a usefully sane world. Get the podcasts out of your blog rss.
If you want to remind me every few months of the existence of your podcast, please do by writing a blog post that explores a related subject differently. If you're not willing to do the written work, find another place to pimp your cast.
From the beginning, Relay FM has been a community for podcasters,
listeners and follow-uppers to share their common interests and
passions. Now, with a Relay FM membership, you can directly support the
hosts of your favorite shows.
Each show has three options for membership:
Silver: $5/month
Gold: $10/month
Annual: $100/year
Oh my goodness. I get it. Stratechery ("business forward" enough I forgive him, and you actually get serious goods for the price), Gimlet (less goods), Overcast (zero goods), Six Colors (nearly zero goods), Bielefeld (aspires to have monkbent-like goods), now Relay FM.
It's cool to hold out the bum cup now. Who knew?!! There's money to be had.
(Aside: Actually, everyone knew. You know how there are people at the highway exit that look like they're eating well and could actually do some work to pay off their REI boots? They figured out $25 an hour to sit beside the road with a two minute cardboard cutout was a pretty good gig. (Obviously not all cup-holders are bogus. I'm just saying folks figured out even begging is exploitable.) How about the tip jars at Starbucks? It's a revenue stream, guys. If you're not using it, you're losing it.)
But I'm tired of it. Telling me you'll take my money for nothing is not informative. Please at least be understated about your begging. Affiliate link? Fine. A link in your About, even the home page? Okay. But enough already acting like asking for money is interesting. It's not.
So what's Relay FM giving? Let's see...
Bonus episodes of every show during Relayโs anniversary week in August
(We plan on adding new perks as we go, and we will keep you posted on that front as soon as we have news!)
One, if you don't have your business plan in place ("new perks as we go!"), stop it. Why rush to beg for cash?
Two, I think you have fund driving all wrong. You're supposed to post completely unlistenable shows for a week or more to force us to pay to make the screeching stop, not give those that pay more shows. Interesting. That said, I've got more podcasts than I can keep up with now, thanks. (I think Under the Radar is the only Relay FM show I listen to regularly now.) You may also keep your newsletter, I believe, though I admittedly really like it when Ben Thompson screws up and makes his weekly letter free via RSS.
Three, well, I guess a 15% discount is kinda like a t-shirt. Or a sixth of one. Or something. But even if I pay for a single month, I'm not saving anything serious. ($3.75 a shirt. Guess I need to buy in bulk.)
Why not keep it simple? Give me something I like (a shirt of a podcast I like, or an app with useful features) and I'll give you a fair amount over what that shirt costs ($15-20, maybe $22). So thanks, Gruber.
You know, if we all want to complain about Arment making Overcast free, creating a race to the bottom in the podcast app category, we should also complain, I suppose, about all the free podcasts, heck, even the broadcast model in general. It'll be hard for anyone to go behind a paywall when I've got days of podcasts to catch up on as it is. Maybe the podcast peeps should start a syndicate and collude like mad.
Was considering starting a podcast, because all the kids are doing it
these days. Picking an intro piece is probably the second toughest
chore, right after picking a podcast hosting service. Which is just
north of finding good podcast service reviews. You know, unlike this
one:
"So, what would the perfect podcasting media host be? It would be free, with a business model that would ensure it wouldn't close down."
Ouch. Much reasonable. Very doable. (Quelle irony.)
So after too many hours researching, it looks like you either throw $5 a
month at libsyn or
blubrry,
use & pay
Amazon S3 while you're small (but pay through the nose if you
accidentally get popular, or someone grabs your backcatalog), try to
work around some somewhat sleezy actions by podbean (so mainly figuring
out how not to let them post your RSS feed to iTunes), or deal with 90
days and gone at buzzsprout --
though I think it's only free for 90 days, not free hosting for 90 days
and then the file is gone. So that's probably out too.
Edit: I think the best postcast host recommendation I've seen is from David Smith, who says to shell out for a $10/month Linode account. Get a host to do whatever you want, backed by SSDs and 24 gigs of space to do, well, anything. I think that's the route I'm taking, as it'll stop me from using the deadbeat host I'm using now, and from wishing I had something up at MacMiniColo. $10 a month is a pretty good deal for your "own" server.
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