I'm a Kottke.org micropatron
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Micropatron follow-up report: how things
went (kottke.org)
Micropatron follow-up report: how things
went (kottke.org)
04/11/2005 03:49 AMMicropatron follow-up report: how things went (kottke.org) .. Jason
Kottke's micropatron followup .. updates his
readers
kottke.org/05/04/micropatron-report
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Micropatron gifts (L@@K L@@K)
Micropatron gifts (L@@K L@@K)
03/14/2005 04:24 PMWell, we're a week and a half into the three-week "fund drive" (if
you're just tuning in, start here)
and it's time for a shout-out to the kind people and companies who
have contributed gifts for some lucky kottke.org micropatrons (contribute $30+ and you
have a chance). If you haven't looked at the
list in awhile, you'll notice some additions.
I chose the gift contributors fairly carefully. With one or two
exceptions, most of the list is comprised of either
friends/acquaintances of mine who are supportive of what I'm doing,
companies that have an interest in blogs and blogging, products I've
used, or people who have gone or are going out on a limb to do
something entreprenurial in their lives (selling photography,
software, soap, books, etc...labors of love and commerce). I have a
special place in my heart for the latter group because they're in a
boat similar to mine and it makes me happy than I can help get the
word out about their projects.
Recent additions to the list:
Solid gold platinum executive class founder gifts:
Again, here's the
detailed list and here's how you become a micropatron for a shot
at one of the above.
Micropatron follow-up report: how things
went
Micropatron follow-up report: how things
went
04/10/2005 12:56 PMPeople have been asking and I have been promising, so here it is:
the "how the kottke.org micropatron fund drive went" post. And then we
shall never speak of it again until, maybe, next February.
(Oh, a quick note about the gift giveaway. I have distributed all
the gifts, so if I contacted you about winning one and you wrote back,
whatever gift you received should be on its way to you shortly, either
via email or snail mail. If you haven't received anything or don't
received anything in the next week or so, drop me an email and I'll
follow up with the lackabout that's in charge of distributing your
particular gift. Thanks!)
Instead of just droning on for many paragraphs about the fund
drive, how much I made, the lessons learned, etc., I'm going to
show you this graph that sums up the whole thing...and then I'm going
to drone on for many paragraphs about the fund drive, how much I made,
the lessons learned, etc. etc.
Note: This "graph" is not actually from the data and is not to
scale. But the general trends and zones are fairly accurate. Plus,
it's kinda purty with the blue there.
(And before we get going, I'd again like to thank everyone who has
contributed to the site so far. I really appreciate it.)
So that's how much money came in over the three week fund drive
period. As you can see, there was a rush at the beginning (over half
of the total amount came in during the first 48 hours), followed by a
small-but-steady stream of contributions until the end of the drive.
The curve blasted through the "I have to move back in with my parents"
barrier within the first few hours and exceeded the point at which I
could each something besides ramen noodles for every meal sometime
during the second day.
The most I got from any one individual was $500, with a couple more
people giving $200 or more. The majority of people gave the suggested
amount of $30, which demonstrates the power of suggestion but leaves
me wondering what people would have "priced" the site at had they been
given no suggested amount. (My guess from the responses is that $30
was artifically high, but not too far off as an average. But that's
just a guess.) Four people contributed two cents or less, either as a
joke ("here's my two cents") or as the equivalent of leaving your
waiter a penny tip for crappy service, but since PayPal takes the
first 30 cents of any payment, I didn't see any of it. Two people
handed me their contributions in person at SXSW and it was fun to able
to thank them in the flesh.
And a bunch of people gave $1-5 each, usually accompanied by a very
nice note that said something like they wished they could afford more
because they really wanted to support me but money was tight or they
were in college or grad school or something like that. Those were my
favorite contributions to receive because it shows that there are
people out there who value media and think about what kinds of media
they want to support financially, even though they may not be able to
afford it. And that they chose to support kottke.org makes me feel
good about my efforts here. (And also nervous because I feel the need
to really kick some ass to put their scarce dollars to good use.)
As I mentioned in my initial post
about all this, my goal was to make "about 1/3 to 1/2 of my former
yearly salary to support my efforts here for a year" and I very nearly
reached that goal, although not quite as you can see from the graph.
But it's close enough that I'm not going to worry too much about it
and I won't need to supplement my income with any freelance work,
which means I can focus on the site full-time, something I'm very
pleased about. I probably could have made more had I pushed harder or
guilted people into giving a little more to "put me over the top".
Near the end of the drive, a friend commented to me that he was
impressed at how restrained I had been in not pimping the fund drive
out to the max. A better salesman than I could have made a lot more, I
think...maybe even double. (Then again, a better salesman would
probably do the whole site differently and I'm not sure it would be
quite the same, you know?) But I knew that the regular kottke.org
readers would read what I had to say about why their contribution was
important to me and the site, consider what it meant to them, and then
make a decision...no coercion necessary.
And finally, the answer to the $64,000 question: is this a
sustainable business model for independent media on the Web? The short
answer is probably no, with a few caveats. I did make enough to
support myself for a year, but I'm already worried about next year (if
I decide to ask for contributions again at that point) because there's
going to be the inevitable drop-off in year-over-year contributions. I
think several people who contributed this time around did so as an
experiment or as "back payment" for the previous 6-7 years of content
and may not be so likely to contribute next time. And some are going
to decide it's not worth it to them to keep up their
"subscription".
Some who didn't contribute may look at the site's performance over
the next year and decide to contribute the second time around, but all
things remaining equal, I think the overall amount of contributions
for the second year will be 1/2 to 2/3 the first year's amount.
However, now that I'm focusing on the site full-time, the traffic will
probably increase over the next year, which will add to the pool of
available contributors, but it would probably need to increase quite a
bit to make up the difference.
Looking at the numbers, less than 1/3 of a percent of my current
average monthly unique visitors contributed to kottke.org...that's
less than 1 in 300. I expected more than that, but I think it's
difficult to "sell" media in an environment where people are
increasingly not paying directly for media. Most media is bought for
viewers/readers by advertisers, making it either free or much cheaper
than it would be. We pay for cable (and most of us are paying for a
ton of channels we don't even watch), but NBC is free and they support
themselves by advertising to their viewers. Magazines are heavily
ad-supported...an issue of Vogue or Wired would probably be $30 if
they didn't run ads. Most of the commerical media on the Web is free
and supported by banner and text ads. Many movies are subsidized by
marketing tie-ins and cross-promotions and movie theatres make their
money by getting people into the theatre to munch on popcorn &
candy and view the ever-growing amount of ads they show you before the
previews (more ads!) start. And those smaller movies that you love
because they don't suck like the big Hollywood films? They wouldn't
even be made if they weren't subsidized by the Shrek 2s of the world
bringing hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. Plus, when Coke
runs an ad on TV or in a magazine, you may not be paying a lot for
that show or magazine, but you're probably paying a lot more for that
can of Coke.
But anyway, it's all indirect so people don't think too much about
it, and so it's difficult, I think, to get people to support media
directly (myself included...I certainly don't want to pay $30 an issue
for Wired). Difficult, but certainly not impossible.
So and but anyhoo, where does that leave the folks who want to do
reader/viewer supported media? Can you actually blog for a living and
not plaster ads all over your site? Here are a few suggestions from
what I've learned so far:
1. Consider advertising. No, really. If you're ok with the
trade-offs involved, it's easier, more stable, and more lucrative.
There's a reason media is heavily supported by ads.
2. Think community (or cult of personality). The more investment
people have in a site, the more they will be willing to pay for it.
There are a lot of people who have been reading kottke.org for a long
time (thanks!) and are probably fairly invested in it, but compare
that to any of the popular political sites or knitting sites or other
topic or event-based sites that intensely involve their readers
(through various means) and make them feel as though they are part of
a group. kottke.org doesn't have much of a community associated with
it or a rabid following and I don't polarize people the way some of
the political blogs do, so my "earning power" is limited, but that's
not what the site is about. But if you site is about community and/or
getting people rallied around a cause or something, you're going to
have an easier time raising funds.
3. Be committed to growing traffic. That's not one of my top
priorities here[1], but if your primary goal is making money,
increasing traffic is the best way to do that. (How? Posting more
often is the easiest way. If you can, get Slashdotted...that'll get
you more traffic that the front page of the New York Times.) If you're
doing something like subscriptions or contributions, you've always got
to replace the people that you're going to lose for whatever
reason.
4. Keep costs low. Duh. I guess what I mean by this is because you
can run most types of blogs from anywhere, if you live in Brazil, the
Czech Republic, Malaysia, or India, you're going to have an easier
time supporting yourself than if you live in a big city in the US...as
long as you have reliable high speed internet access. Bad news for
Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and those who live in other places
with a high cost of living...unless you're in high school and still
living on your parent's dime.
And that's about it for now...that's more than I wanted to write,
but once I get rambling... If anyone is interested, the contribution form is
still available for use and will be available for the next few
months, but I just won't be bothering you about it.
[1] Are you getting the sense that I don't treat this site as a
business too much? Good, because I don't. Most of that stuff I wrote
above (traffic, the "price" of the site, conversion rates, etc.)
doesn't factor into how I think about the site at all. The fund drive
was, for me, a fairly uncomfortable undertaking that I would have
liked to avoid if I didn't need to support myself financially with it.
The day that kottke.org becomes a real business that focuses on profit
first (instead of the pseudo-business labor-of-love it is now) is the
day the site will probably start to suck[2]. Instead, I'm going to do
my best in setting a course I think is favorable for the site and hope
that there's a way to support myself with it along the way.
[2] The wiseacres in the back will no doubt exclaim at this point,
"start to suck? Ha, you're long past that!"
Quick micropatron gift note
Quick micropatron gift note
03/23/2005 10:23 AMI've begun the process of informing the winners of the micropatron
gifts via email. So if you contributed $30 or more during the fund
drive, watch the email address you have listed at PayPal for an email in the next
couple of days.
For the rest of you, here's a fun
board game that combines Tetris with Go.
kottke.org redesign (kottke.org)
kottke.org redesign (kottke.org)
06/28/2004 06:30 AMWhat happens when you spend two years working on one design ..
Rationale and background for Jason Kottke's redesign .. kottke.org has
been redesigned .. redesigned
kottke.org/04/06/kottke-redesign
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The war (kottke.org)
The war (kottke.org)
03/19/2003 10:46 PMkottke.org :: home of fine hypertext products .. Kottke talks war ..
KOTTKE .. Kottke .. Jason
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Kottke
Kottke
07/12/2004 04:09 AMvia
kottke.org/remainder/04/07/5976.html
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A9 (kottke.org)
A9 (kottke.org)
04/15/2004 07:40 AMA9 beta search service (kottke.org) .. Kottke's response .. Kottke ..
about
kottke.org/04/04/a9
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kottke.org failed on 11/06/03 (21:47:55)
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Welcome back, Kottke
Welcome back, Kottke
06/05/2005 11:47 PMI'm back from a week and a half of vacationing in Ireland. Aside
from the frequent rain, Ireland is a beautiful country...and even the
rain isn't that bad. I'll have some photos up soon (three quick photos on Flickr
for now). I didn't take my computer along or check email while I was
there, only thought about the web once or twice**, and didn't miss it
at all. But it wasn't exactly the revelatory recharging experience
that I've heard about from other people who are tethered to the web
all day long and then take an extended break from it. Not exactly sure
why...maybe I've honed my gear switching ability to a fine point so
that whatever situation I'm in, I'm in the appropriate mental state.
Or perhaps I can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Anyway, I'm
back and ready to get back to work (or whatever it is that I do
here).
Thanks to David and Anil for posting remaindered links while I
was gone. It's fun (if a little strange) coming back to a bunch of
unfamiliar content on my own site...looking forward to rolling through
all their links. However if you're considering hiring either of these
two fellows to help you with your blog business, I would direct your
attention to the graph of my traffic over the past week at right. When
those guys took over -- which day will henceforth be known here at
kottke.org as "Black Monday" -- well, you can see what their reign of
terror did to the number of daily visitors around here. On the other
hand, they were probably too busy with their proper (i.e. paying) jobs
to worry too much about posting, so they are to be commended for their
attention to their duties. In either case, it's been a pleasure...come
back anytime.
** Apart from an extended conversation about RSS while hiking
through some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. You can
take the boy out of the web and put him in a sheep pasture, but you
can't take the web out of the boy. Or something.
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More on Sony v. Kottke
More on Sony v. Kottke
12/19/2004 03:45 PMContinuing coverage of all the Spoilergate controversy: From the Red
Herring, And the question is, ‘Who is a big bully?’. And over on
the PubSub homepage, the sample subscriptions list, under the News
header, "Sony v. Kottke, Bernard Kerik, The Ukraine"....
kottke gets out the vote
kottke gets out the vote
09/23/2004 03:07 PMi know there's some fantastic resources out there, go post 'em
kottke redesigns
kottke redesigns
06/27/2004 09:08 PMintroducing "black text on a white background" to the blog
world
The end of free (kottke.org)
The end of free (kottke.org)
05/14/2004 11:51 PMJason Kottke has an intelligent idea .. The end of free (kottke.org)
.. Kottke
kottke.org/04/05/the-end-of-free
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Everything is broken (kottke.org)
Everything is broken (kottke.org)
04/22/2004 05:17 AMEverything is broken
(kottke.org)
kottke.org/04/04/everything-is-broken
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The Corporation (kottke.org)
The Corporation (kottke.org)
01/27/2004 03:33 AMon the movie The Corporation .. quoting
from
kottke.org/04/01/the-corporation
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kottke.org failed on 12/21/03 (08:35:45)
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Grok Description matches for I'm a Kottke.org micropatron
GrokA matches for I'm a Kottke.org micropatron
I'm a Kottke.org micropatron
