Tag: crowdfunding

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Announcing “The 9pm Operation Budget Repair”

Subscription Hero Image 3: click for further information on the subscriber driveIt’s time to heed the words of the Prime Minister. Clarity of purpose, that’s what we need more generally on this arsehat-ridden island continent. I’ve been trying to bring it to you, through this, the finest goat-oriented political and social commentary podcast in the galaxy. But it’s not enough.

This podcast needs to happen weekly. This podcast needs your help now.

“The 9pm Operation Budget Repair” is a subscriber drive for The 9pm Edict, the same as with community broadcasters — or public broadcasters, as the Americans call them.

The target is to get enough subscribers on board by the end of September to allow this podcast to go weekly — because I think it needs to be weekly to get into the rhythm of things.

The full details are on the Skank Media website at skank.com.au/repair — the targets, the subscriptions on offer, the things you can do to help if you’ve already subscribed — and in coming days I’ll be adding progress reports and further suggestions.

You can listen to the announcement below. But if you want all of the podcast episodes, now and in the future, subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe automatically in iTunes, or go to SoundCloud.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:49 — 3.0MB)

[Credits: Audio of Tony Abbott via ABC Radio’s AM. The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian, Edict fanfare by neonaeon, all from The Freesound Project. Photograph of Stilgherrian taken 29 March 2009 by misswired, used by permission.]

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“Tip Stilgherrian” page operational, with few glitches

Stripe logoNow that I’ve run two successful crowdfunding campaigns through Pozible, I’m starting to set up systems to accept direct payments for my various projects. The first, a page to accept one-off donations was mostly straightforward.

I chose to use Stripe as the card payment service because I already had a Stripe account for my second Pozible project, The 9pm Resurrection.

While Stripe is still in beta in Australia, Pozible already uses it to handle recurring subscription payments, and I’d already received an invitation into the beta program. I figured it made sense to keep all my payments in one place.

Plus I’ll eventually be using Memberful to process subscriptions, and that also uses Stripe.

To integrate Stripe into this WordPress site, I used the free plugin WP Stripe from Human Made Limited. This provided me with one payment form per website, which is all I needed for this task. I also installed the WP Stripe Email Receipts plugin by Philip Newcomer.

All that went smoothly. I installed the plugins, activated them, entered my Stripe account keys and a template for the email receipts — and they just worked.

The only difficulties came with configuring Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on the web server, and that was down to a bug I encountered in the WHM/cPanel hosting management software while I was installing the SSL certificate. That’s nothing to do with Stripe or WordPress or the plugins, of course, just my dodgy web server.

I’ll document that bug over the fold. Meanwhile, why not try out the system and give me a tip? Was that too blatant?

Continue reading ““Tip Stilgherrian” page operational, with few glitches”

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The 9 O’Clock Resurrection hits Target 1

Screenshots from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection progress videos: click for YouTube playlistMy project to resurrect The 9pm Edict reached the initial target on Saturday — thank you — but there’s a few minutes left, so I’m hoping that we might get something up beyond that.

Here’s how things looked as we started the day today.

Chart of progress in The 9 O'Clock Resurrection

The upper line shows the total commitments so far, and where that line ends up at 0847 AEST today will determine what happens in May.

The lower line shows just the cumulative subscriptions, and where that ends up will provide the starting-point for crowdfunding June’s budget.

I’ll run another Pozible campaign around the third week of May, probably ending around 21 May. That will set the production pool for June — that is, the subscriptions continuing from this campaign, plus any new subscriptions, plus any one-off pledges. However I’ll also be investigating other ways to organise the subscriptions and perhaps some commercial sponsorship.

I’ll post a brief update once the Pozible campaign finishes this morning, and a longer explainer tonight.

Meanwhile you can watch my daily progress videos, which ceased on the weekend because I was distracted by a computer rebuild.

[Update 1110 AEST: The final total raised for the May production pool was $1082, so that’s two episodes confirmed for the month. We “only” have $304 in ongoing subscriptions, which isn’t quite enough to fund podcasts in June — yet. There will be further fundraising before then, so stay tuned. I’m currently feeling quite confident that I can build on this base — but I’ll have more on that tonight.]

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Returning after computer grief

I hate these little “sorry I’m late with everything” notes, but I am late with everything — because I ended up in software upgrade hell over the weekend, and that took away two days of my life. But I’m back, and most of those problems have been dealt with.

What I can tell you quickly is that my Pozible campaign has been successful, and The 9pm Edict podcast will be returning. There’s funding committed for at least two episodes in May, but there’s still just under 11 hours left in the crowdfunding campaign so there may be more.

There will definitely be an update before lunchtime tomorrow, Tuesday.

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The 9 O’Clock Resurrection halfway to Target 1

Screenshots from The 9 O'Clock Resurrection progress videos 2 and 3: click for YouTube playlistMy project to resurrect The 9pm Edict has reached the halfway mark on its way to the initial target — but comments from some supporters have led me to believe that I need to better explain the funding model.

I’m establishing a monthly funding, planning and production cycle for the podcast.

The current Pozible project is the first of what will be continuing monthly fundraising campaigns. When it ends on 29 April, I’ll know how much money is in the production pool for May — that’s all the one-off contributions plus the first month of the subscriptions. I’ll then be able to lock in the production schedule for that month.

Here’s how things looked as we started the day today.

Continue reading “The 9 O’Clock Resurrection halfway to Target 1”

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Weekly Wrap 202: Doom Clown, fish heads, crowdfunding

Salmon heads on special at $1.99 per kilogram: click to embiggenMy week of Monday 14 to Sunday 20 April 2014 was a solid performer in the first half, and suitably balanced in the second half — not a time-off Easter, but at least one that wasn’t about over-work.

My own media production moved away from covering the Heartbleed bug, producing just one item — an opinion piece looking back at the way the crisis was handled, as opposed to the straight news stories produced during the previous week. But the story had moved into the mainstream, and that provided the background for a couple of media appearances.

More importantly, at least from my point of view, was that on Easter Sunday I launched “The 9 O’Clock Resurrection”, a Pozible crowdfunding project to re-establish my podcast The 9pm Edict as a regular part of my media production schedule.

I’ve already posted two progress videos onto a YouTube playlist, and we’re already nearly halfway to the initial target. I’m posting plenty of updates elsewhere, so I won’t bang on about that here.

Articles

Media Appearances

5at5

There was one for every working day, so that went to plan. Why don’t you subscribe to 5at5, and then I don’t need to keep telling you about it.

Corporate Largesse

  • On Thursday I had a meeting with someone from Lewis PR to exchange notes on what we each had coming up. They paid for coffee and cake.

The Week Ahead

It’s a short working week here in Australia, which is partially why this Weekly Wrap is appearing on Tuesday. Monday was mostly an excursion with two friends to Dulwich Hill, Summer Hill and Ashfield. Dumplings were involved.

Today, Tuesday, is about email and planning and many minor tasks that need to be gotten out of the way, so that I can concentrate on promoting the Pozible project and plan out the next few weeks.

Wednesday and Thursday are writing days, with at least one thing to write for ZDNet Australia, plus some work to be done on sorting out my cashflows. Friday is Anzac Day. I will mark it in some way, personally, but I’m not sure how yet. The weekend is unplanned as yet.

I’m in Sydney all week, and currently plan to return to the Blue Mountains on Sunday.

[Photo: Salmon heads on special at $1.99 per kilogram, photographed at Cabramatta in Sydney’s south-west on Saturday 19 April 2014.]