What's TWiT Worth To You?

When I first started doing podcasts under the TWiT banner it was little more than a hobby. How that hobby has grown, from two audio-only shows in April 2005 (The Tech Guy radio show and "this WEEK in TECH") to over 15 shows plus 40 hours a week of live video streaming. TWiT is now a full-time business employing seven people at the TWiT Cottage in Petaluma and a dozen more contractors all over the world.

My original plan was to run TWiT solely on your contributions, and indeed, you have been very generous. I always liked the idea of the audience supporting the network. It's the best way for us to know whether we're on the right track or completely off track. You got us started, but the expansion of TWiT over the past four and a half years required more money than listeners were willing to give. That's why we started taking advertising. We never have more than one ad per half hour of programming, and we've limited advertisers to a handful of products I personally use and can endorse. These companies: AOL, Cachefly, Citrix, Audible, Astaro, Drobo, Squarespace, Carbonite, Visa, Google, and Ford have helped us improve our quality, increase our variety, and become more of what you wanted. We're very grateful to our contributors for getting us started and our advertisers for keeping us going.

Lately, however, I've been wondering (and some have been asking) what role contributions play in an ad-supported network. The money is very helpful, certainly, but it only covers a small percentage of our operating expenses. I like being able to provide listeners with a way to show their support for what we are doing, but the connection between what we do and what you pay is getting more tenuous all the time. I want to get back to the old days where your contribution really meant something. So I'm going to make a change that gives your contribution vastly greater importance; to give you a way to vote with your dollar (or pound or Euro or peso).

Wouldn't it be great if customers could determine how a much company's chief executive is paid? Well I can't speak for AT&T or Apple, but at TWiT that's exactly what we're going to do.

Up to now I've been taking my pay from TWiT's general fund (along with all the other employees). Not any more. From now on you'll pay me directly with your contributions. I won't take a penny out of the operating funds.Think of your contributions as a tip jar. If you like what I'm doing with TWiT I hope you'll contribute $2 a month (or more or less depending on what TWiT is worth to you). If you are unhappy with our direction, you can cancel your contribution completely. Believe me, I'll notice. Your contributions will have a direct impact on how TWiT is run - because they'll have a direct impact on my personal bottom line.

I should say that I do have a "day job." My Tech Guy radio show pays enough to support me and my family, so I'm not risking bankruptcy with this plan, but the money I make from TWiT has a significant impact on my income, so your contributions will send a very clear message.We'll publish the amount monthly so you can see exactly what I'm making before taxes and adjust your contributions accordingly.

Many of you have existing recurring contributions with TWiT through Paypal. You can't change the amount directly, but you can cancel by logging into your Paypal account and going to the History->Subscriptions page. We'll keep the $2, $5, and $10 buttons for those who prefer an automatic monthly contribution, and there's a one-shot button you can use to put in a little bit from time to time. You can also mail contributions directly to TWiT, Box 1018, Petaluma, CA 94953. Please only contribute what you think TWiT is worth; only what you think I'm worth. Don't worry, our staff and hosts will continue to get paid out of our advertising revenue (and I'm proud to say we pay well and offer great benefits and will continue to do so).

I've worked hard to make TWiT an entertaining and informative resource for the technophile, but only you can determine how much that's worth. From now on when I say that your contributions are very important to me, you can believe it! And if you're happy (or unhappy) with what we're doing you can let me know directly and with a significant impact. I think this is the right way to run a business, and I'm pleased to put my income in your hands.

As always, thanks for your support for TWiT. We're here because you listen and watch. We couldn't do it without you.

Leo

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (105) »

Grand Theft Auto IV Time-lapse (15 Days in Liberty City)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

On designer humility

The latest much ado about nothing on the Internet: Blogger Joshua Blankenship has written a pot-calling-the-kettle-black diatribe against Dustin Curtis's apparent lack of humility in criticizing American Airlines. He seems to think that Dustin should be a little more humble in his criticisms of such a large, immovable corporation whose complexity seemingly exceeds that of a very good designer.

I call bullshit.

A humble designer is one who affects no change indeed. Designers should be less humble. When engineers or business guys or management or *anyone* makes a product lousier, they should get up and shout, and raise hell. Designers should NOT 'know their place.' Because if the powers that be keep their power, then we will continue to live in a barely working cesspool of compromises and bad experiences.

Apple wins because the guy who cares the most about user experience happens to run the show. And last I checked, humble wasn’t really a word you could use to describe him.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (7) »

Popeye

via tofslie.com

This is why cartoons should stay the way they are, reality sucks!!

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

The Conversation

Newspaper editors!  A small request?

Ahem...

Please stop allowing your writers, who have no little to no idea of what they speak, to submit pieces on Twitter and social media. It's embarrassing. You're allowing them to embarrass themselves. Jackie Ashley's piece in the Guardian last week was a classic example of the condition. She writes maybe a thousand words on Twitter and makes it painfully clear that she simply does not know what it is.

Like many people, Jackie Ashley knows how to make her PC do the one thing it needs to do to enable her to make a living.  But beyond, in her case, firing up Microsoft Word, she's at a loss. I would imagine that when Jackie "surfs the net" , she has to wait patiently for each page to load because she doesn't know about tabbed browsing yet. I would also guess that she doesn't know how to edit a wiki...or set up a simple website...or write and save her work online...and that's fine!  I have a few blind spots myself! For instance, I don't know how to use Photoshop at even the most basic level. So in the same way you would not let me write about Photoshop, I would ask that you not let Jackie write about Twitter .

I would in fact go even further and say that if a journalist doesn't know how to do any of the things mentioned above,  he or she is no longer capable of writing about the modern world. And if they can't keep up, for heaven's sake keep them out of the way.

Like a lot of Web 2.0, Twitter is as good as the people on it, and uninformed pieces like Jackie's continue to fool otherwise bright people into thinking that it's some sort of "I'm having a sandwich" announcement service. Certainly, there are people on Twitter who might use it this way...and more power to them if it makes them happy... but there are also journalists, scientists, humorists, magazines, newspapers, authors,  and Samuel Johnson. There are Mums, Dads, soldiers, doctors, nurses, firemen, base jumpers, astronauts, old people, young people, builders, boxers, cops and at least one tank (don't ask). And what are they all doing? Sorry, what are we all doing? We are sharing links to thought-provoking articles, we are making each other laugh, we are keeping each other up to speed on current events...we are communicating with each other on a platform that encourages good manners, that rewards us when we're interesting and lightly smacks our hand when we're not. For the first time in history, the human race is having a global conversation, and despite all our differences, we actually seem to be getting on quite well.

Meanwhile, the dying newspaper industry sits on the sidelines and sneers.

My experience of Twitter is slightly slanted, because of my limited, bogus celebrity , so I won't go into the many ways that the service has enriched my life because I'm unrepresentative.  The one thing I will say is that it has made it very easy for me to do polls. So last week I asked the Twittersphere a question (The Ignoranti is my term, a collective noun for the pundit class, and the #whatTwitterdidforme hashtag is...well, do we really have to keep explaining that?). Here are just a few of the thousands of replies.

(I realise that the following sounds like an infomercial. But you'll notice that no-one's trying to sell you anything. One of the things the Ignoranti likes to sneer about, in their confused way, is Twitter's seeming inability to make money, as if that remains a useful way of assessing value after the diddling we've recently received from The Masters of The Economic Universe.)

* Joining Twitter is like signing up for flying lessons only to find yourself sitting at the controls of a passenger jet..but I envy you that moment when it 'clicks' and you suddenly realise the possibilities. There are many Twitter guides for beginners out there. If you are one of those people who opened an account and then gave up in disgust after fiddling about with it for ten minutes (which Janet Street Porter actually admitted to doing in her Independent piece), then have a look at one of them

Loading mentions Retweet

Mobile Lighting Rig...To Infinity!

Okay. I'm willing to walk around a comic-con or the MIT Flea with a big SLR and a flash head and a battery grip in order to get the best photos I can get. But THIS guy! This is a sign of true dedication:

Breaking it down for folks who aren't photo geeks: he's got a studio-style umbrella flash rig, mounted to a backpack and fired via a radio remote mounted on his Canon EOS 40D. My hat's off. Though I have to think that this lighting rig made candid shots a bit of a challenge.
 
I wonder how frequently people stopped to ask him what character he was supposed to be?
 
His photos, from the San Diego Comic-Con:
 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howiemuzika/sets/72157621867516976/

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (3) »

Unusual and Creative Bloody Designs

                 

Click here to download:

Unusual_and_Creative_Bloody_De.zip (406 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (3) »

Trent Reznor quits Twitter -- Trolls win.

via stereogum.com

Stereogum has republished Trent Reznor's final note to the raving masses that have driven him from his social media experiment.

With over 600,000 followers, Trent Reznor flexed the star power that comes with being the voice of a several generations of angsty youth. It seems as though a tiny fraction of his fans have ruined the party.

Could it be that the classic Hollywood fear of over-engagement be true? Celebs are struggling to figure out what role they want Twitter, Facebook and their social media presence to play. Reznor says:

I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and "human"... If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you've projected on me, fair enough - it's probably time for you to leave.

Figures of music represent lifestyles and amorphous identities. It's hard to be larger than life when you're also a real person. Is the NIN frontman the first casualty in a trend? We'll see.

Think about the scale -- at worst the trolls numbered fewer than 600 people, or 0.1% of his followers. Given any large enough collection of people, you're going to have some ugliness. But suddenly these 600 had a way to reach out and ruin someone's day.

We're definitely still figuring out this computer thing. For now, trolls win.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (3) »

Spock on Spock

I loved the movie and the new Spock. Then I stumbled on this awesome one on one interview with both actors who play the iconic Vulcan.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (0) »

Evol’s art

Evol’s is one of the most interesting street artist that i known. He’s curretly displaying his new works at the WILDE Gallery in Berlin. You can check out the photographs taken by Just, which documents the vernisagge at the Wilde Gallery in Berlin. If are you there, please don’ t miss it!

Below the complete WILDE gallery expo description. Enjoy!

Evol’s interests have focused on the overlooked and the refuse of urban society, offering visual comments and thoughts that remind us of the failure of modernism and its visions of an architectural utopia. EVOL draws our attention to the collective memory of places, a memory that is open ended, but in it’s decoding always seems to remain strangely personal.

           

Click here to download:

Evols_art.zip (749 KB)

Loading mentions Retweet

Comment (1) »