As of late many podcasts have been including advertisements on their free podcasts. While I have no problem with it, some do, and too bad, it's a way to make money. I have to applaud them for being able to get advertisers. Having advertisers like Visa, Becks, and others invest in podcasts begins to show the legitimate nature of the medium and also allows the medium to still be viable. But that is not the only way to bring revenue to a podcast.

On the September 24th, 2008 show of This week in Media from Pixelcorps.tv, the hosts had stated that people are not willing to pay for podcasts. I have to disagree. I myself pay for Ken Ray's Mac OS Ken Day 6. Mac OS Ken runs five days a week (typically), Monday through Friday, for free, only with some ads. The cost for Day 6 is $10 a month for one additional weekly show, and eventually even more content throughout the week. The Day 6 shows are provided via RSS, which can import into any RSS aggregator. I would be willing to pay for more podcasts that would offer this type of model.

Most would ask "Why pay for it when they are free." Well, it's quite simple. I follow the thought that "you get what you pay for". When you do not pay for a show you cannot really complain if the host or hosts end up missing a show once or twice a month, you’re not paying for the show. Additionally, paying $10 a month for exclusive content, which hasn't disappointed me yet, is well worth it. Moreover, supporting a podcaster whose work you truly enjoy is something I think everybody should do. Don’t forget, premium podcasts normally do not have ads in them, which can be compelling to some.

I did contact Ken Ray directly via Twitter to inquire about Day 6 in regards to number of listeners and got a response which included "the conversion rate to paid listeners is between 3% and 5%." Ken did not give me exact numbers, just the conversion rate. This is perfectly good information for what I want to convey. I don't really need exact numbers anyway.

Let's take a look at this figure, we'll use the low figure of 3%. Let's say you do charge $10 a month for a premium companion podcast to a free one. If your "free" podcast had 1000 listeners and we take 3% of 1000, you're talking 30 listeners. 30 listeners who pay for a podcast will net about $300 a month. That's not too shabby considering that you already have the equipment and there will probably be only a slight investment initially. That totals to approximately $3600 more per year, in addition to whatever advertising revenue is generated from the free podcast. While most will probably make more from advertising than premium, it is a revenue stream.

Additionally, I also give a donation to TWiT.tv every month. It's a total of $12 a month in donations to the network. Again, I do this because I think supporting the podcasters is a good way to help the entire podcasting community. I know shows like TWiT consistently have 100,000 listeners. If even 1% paid for a premium show, that’s 1,000 listeners at $10 a month, or another $10,000 a month. Granted, TWiT.tv is not the best example since Leo does have a staff, while most podcasters are only one or two people hosting and producing the show. I myself would be willing to pay for a feed of TWiT.tv live streams, since I cannot watch when they are on, which is throughout the day.

I believe as though this is a sustainable model, perhaps with a bit more buy in from listeners or viewers. While I would like to see more of a 10% free to premium ratio, 5% is not too shabby given the lifespan of the medium. I would also like to see more podcasters do this type of model. Having a subscription model will not work that well. Providing premium content at a cost, while still providing a free version is what consumers are willing to tolerate.

The premium model has worked quite well in all other types of mediums, including DVD sales, games (whether they are console or PC). Consumers seem to be willing to pay for premium content as long as it’s compelling content.

Please keep in mind, I do not have a podcast myself, although I’ve thought about doing one, so I'm basically a pure consumer, not a producer/consumer like so many in the industry. I may be a minority, but remember, I’m the minority that is that 3 to 5% that is willing to pay for premium content, as long as it’s worthwhile and compelling.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post this picture, it's just classic of the revolt of DRM that is currently going on in regards to Spore.

I didn't think that it would get that chilly so early in September... late September maybe, but geez...

I don't watch much television. Period, I just don't. The only time I tend to watch any television is when my girlfriend wants to watch something, or if there really is not anything I want to do on my computer.

There are only a handful of channels that I will watch. They are HGTV, History Channel, Food Network (If some actual information, not reality show is on), Discovery, and others that I can't think of right now. Some might ask why I don't watch CNN, MSNBC, or any other news channel. You want to know why, here's why. All you hear about is the fucking elections, which natural disaster is happening now, and the most recent tragedy has occurred. I don't hear anything about the conflict in Georgia, news around the United States or anything else.

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE FUCKING ELECTION. If there were news about NASA, or anything but the fucking elections I'd be happy to sit and watch Mainstream news stations. But, the three current stories are the upcoming elections (which they've been covering for the past 18 months already), the weather, and the olympics. Now, I understand that the Olympics only come around every 2 years, but still, do we need 24 hour coverage of the Election? No, why not, because as soon as the election occurs that's all they'll be talking about then as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am going to vote, and I know who I'm voting for, however I do not need to hear the same story regurgitated ever 20 minutes. Has the American society become so dumb that we cannot have 20 stories within a 60 minute period? I think that Mainstream media is beginning to shoot themselves in the foot.

If I were to not watch television and only watch television on the internet using sites like Hulu, or Abc.com that would be perfectly fine with me. I do not think that mainstream media is understanding that the majority of viewers do not want to hear the same story over and over and over again. It's just fucking ridiculous.

One thing that I know mainstream is consciously aware of is the fact that the upcoming generations will not be watching traditional television and will be time-shifting everything. So at least they're not completely oblivious.

My suggestion to mainstream media is to actual see what the viewers want, not what you think they want. Try polling them, and asking them what content that they would like to see appear on the station. Guess what might actual happen, you might actually get more viewers instead of fewer. Just my rant and thoughts on mainstream media.

I just cleaned up some options which I hope will now fix Twitter-Tools... We'll see if this works if there is an archive of my tweets from today... I'm not getting my hopes up. If this doesn't work I'll start over entirely...

I've upgraded the Blog to the latest version, I don't expect any issues, but if there are any please let me know. I'm also wondering if Twitter Tools will ever work, or if I'll have to start the hell over again... I'm thinking I might...

This is just a quick rant on how Mobile me is definitely not something that most users who want schedule backups, that actually work, to be using. Why, well I have SuperDuper! all set to backup my Documents, Photos, and Amazon purchased music every two hours, since I know it won't change that often.

While this SHOULD work, it is still syncing it's initial attempt to copy those items. Now, granted, there are 8200 items, and it does total to just over 4GB, but still, the initial sync should have been completed by now. I did this about 24 hours ago, and it's still not done, this is just too fucking ridiculous for me.

I'll probably post over at macgasm a more extensive rant/review of Mobile me, but that will be forthcoming. I want to see how long this initial backup and several syncs end up working in the long run. So, if you're looking for an affordable backup solution you might want to look at Amazon's S3, if available. It's roughly the same cost and it actually works with JungleDisk for automated backups.

Here's a tale of, is it meant to be or not, at the Oakbrook, IL Apple Store. I woke my sorry ass up at 5 am to be at the Oakbrook Apple store by 6. I actually arrived at 5:45. I was about #35 in line. I figured waiting two hours isn't bad, even three wouldn't be bad. But waiting 6 1/2 hours isn't what I had planned.

The Oakbrook apple store had about 350 people in line at about 10:00 am, with more coming. At exactly 8, they did let in the first 15 people. I, along with everybody else was thinking, cool... 45 minutes to an hour, we'll be out of here. No Dice. It turns out that the Apple store had a "power outage" the night before from the storms that rolled through. Now, this would normally be plausible since we did have some nasty storms roll through. The little thing that gave away Apple's B.S. in the matter is that less than 30 minutes later they changed their story.

It was their Point of Sale server that crashed, and they didn't know how long it would be. Most stores, having a huge pending revenue stream (I figured about $200,000 for the iPhones to be sold that day alone) would go ahead and check their Point of Sale (POS) system when they arrive, just to verify. Even by taking the first person in line and letting them know that they can't leave until after 8, but still, they could go ahead pay for their phone now. No, of course not, that would make sense.

After nobody had left the store after about 45 minutes (8:45 or so), they came out and told us that it was now an activation problem on AT&T's end. People were starting to get irritated. It was a humid, 80 degrees by 8:00 am. So having the sun, heat, and humidity and having to wait longer than anticipated was not what most had in mind. But nobody really complained.

The story changed several times throughout the morning, it's a "nationwide problem", "it's an Apple Only problem, not AT&T", "It's an Activation Server Problem."

At about 10:15 or so, they came back out and said that their POS system was down, but Apple corporate made the Oakbrook store their #1 priority. I already knew it wasn't a "nationwide issue" since I was getting tweets from others at other are stores about getting their phones and heading out the door. Finally, at about 11:00 the first people started trickling out. Their POS System was back up, but activation was taking forever.

So, they had people activate their phones at home, but did not announce this to the crowd at large. I finally left, with my 16GB Black in Hand (Thanks to an Early Birthday gift from the best girlfriend in the world), at 12:15pm or so. A full 6 1/2 hours after initially arriving.

Now, to the stores credit, they did provide water, and still had a ton remaining when I left. The crowd, being as understanding, didn't riot, didn't complain (too much). Overall, it was a good crowd, up in the front anyway. None of the other fanboys and fangirls worried about people leaving to get something to eat, drink, or use the restroom. It was a pretty good crowd. We did however have one woman who managed to jump about 250 spots, just because her friend was further up, so she kept chatting with her, and moving with the crowd, but nobody said anything. Not that any of us really cared, we just wanted our damn phones.

Once inside the Apple Store, everybody was great (the Air Conditioning was really nice). I did send an email to Sjobs@apple.com, about the poor planning, and failure to test their systems before hand. Which, if they would have done at 6AM, probably would have sped the whole process up by 2 hours, and it would not have been as bad. The email has yet to receive a response, as of the writing of this. I sent the email at 9:17AM on 7/11/08.

I didn't attend the launch last year, I went on Saturday and was #4 in line at that point.

Here is the coverage map of the majority of the area that I go, most of it is covered with 3G.

We'll see how well the battery holds up.

I've noticed that either I don't have enough time to do what I would like, or that time is speeding up, take your choice, either one.

I'd love to have a couple hours to sit down and really work on my web app and have my brain sit and actually want to work on it. But I haven't been in the mood to do such things lately. I know I need to work on it, but I just can't get motivated enough to really put a ton of time into it.

The other thing I haven't had time to do much of lately is read my OS X 10.5 Leopard support book. I did read a bit earlier this week but not really a ton. I do need to find time to continue reading the book so I can take the certification test, which I wanted to do back in May. If the darn thing only came as an audiobook I would have already listened to it, twice probably, and taken the certification test. I know it doesn't sound that interesting to most, but Audio is definitely a better format for me. Alas until that occurs I'll just have to make time for it...

I've been working on a webapp for the last few weeks. I haven't come up with a name, website, or even finished the thing yet. I do have a domain, so we'll see how it goes... It's nearing the 1.0 completion. There are still a list of things to do, but it's getting there. I'll post links and the like when I get everything going.

The big question with the project is where to stop development for the 1.0 release. I don't want to do a beta, that's just ridiculous and it shows that you have no clue where to go with your application. The main item that I'm asking myself is 'What is the best way to monetize it?'. Should I do the Software as a Service (SaaS) model, whereby you give away the software but have people pay for support. Or do I sell the application and the support?

Let me know by filling out the poll.

[poll id='2']