Having the chance to literally unplug from the daily rush of being a freelance entrepreneur (read: hiding out in the north of France for a week), has given me some time to sit down and think about what I want to do with the Knightwise.com website and the podcast. Don’t worry, we are not going away anytime soon (the fact that nothing has actually been moving on the blog for the last couple of months is evidence of that) but I do need to make up my mind on what to do next, what to do with the “next season” of Knightwise.com
Knightwise.com is essential
Knightwise.com is and has always been the digital playground of my life. Keeping track of new stuff, experimenting with technology and sharing that with the community has been one of the most rewarding things I have done the last 13 years or so. Even though I don’t have much time anymore to get into my “geek groove” because I am insanely busy with my own company, I know that “being” Knightwise and “doing” Knightwise.com is an essential building block to stay sane. I just need that creative outlet AND it’s a great idea to keep abreast of whats going on on the edge of real and cyberspace.
Downloading is doubtfull
With the advent of ubiquitous bandwidth in every corner of the modern world I HAVE been looking at the “classic” way I have been distributing the Knightwise.com podcast. Recording the audio file, uploading it to the internet archive, linking it to the website and then pushing that content to different social media platforms to get traction is .. a pain in the rectum. When you look at the average number of downloads it might be worth it, but it is hard to find new followers and “get noticed” by people who can join the community. As a little experiment I did a Youtube screencast a couple of weeks ago (Completely done on my Linux machine) and posted that online. 4 days later: 20 000 views AND a SLEW of comments. Now I KNOW its not about the SIZE but about the QUALITY of your audience, but still: its a BIG number. Part of the reason was using the platform: Youtube just has a far bigger “reach” then just a teeny wordpress blog like mine. I asked myself the question: is the “old” way of doing podcasting still effective enough ? Maybe we should quit downloading and offer all of the content on a bigger platform.
No I’m not gonna sell out.
Hold your horses, I’m not gonna sell out just yet. With over 1000 articles on the blog there is no way I’m going to ditch my little website here. And I don’t trust the lords of Youtube enough to credit them with all my content. Luckily this is not an “Or” but either an “and” problem. How about we do BOTH ?
Thank you TC
I was inspired by the return of the Spacemusic Podcast. TC followed his dream, packed up his stuff and moved to Malaga to reboot his podcast. He is doing a “streaming” version of the show on platforms like Mixcloud and a “Download” version of his show via Patreon. For 6 dollar’s a show you can get the downloadable version via a secret RSS feed and you get a premium non-stop version too. (Although I find the show LESS enjoyable without TC in it). He makes a buck out of every show he produces and that doesn’t sound so bad to me.
So what do you think ?
Now I’m pretty late to the Patreon Party and there is a reason: I don’t NEED to make money off of Knightwise.com but it WOULD be a little bit of a motivation AND a big help if I need to buy some stuff for the show. I know you have heard this before but it WOULD help me stay true to the general Knightwise.com idea: Free for everyone, at a cost when you want “more”.
As for the “content” part, it WOULD mean that you would be getting the majority of the content from the blog while the content itself will be streamed from the different platforms (Youtube/Soundcloud) and depending if I will be doing Audio or Video you can download the shows into your RSS reader of choice. Sound like a good plan ?
So help me decide: Would this be a great way to get your Knightwise.com fix and would you pay (about 1 dollar or something) per show just to be able to download it for Offline use ? I would love to hear your feedback in the comments.