Giant Bomb Bomb-All

Iridium884 wrote:

I'm still a bit concerned.

$350k/yr (and that's assuming that everyone right now stays for the year) is not a heck of a lot of money. Factoring in bandwidth, facilities, and, the biggest cost of them all, labor (salaries and benefits), I still can't seem them running anything but a large deficit in the future. Maybe this just lowers the burn rate?

Whiskey Media has been able to maintain three websites since 2008 (and Comic Vine has been around since 2006). They were somehow able to make money during that time. They were apparently doing well enough to justify adding two more websites this year and movie to a new (what appears to be much larger) facility. I assume that magical income source still exists and that the subscription stuff is there to supplement it.

I think they make money by licensing out their wiki API. I seem to remember reading something about it awhile ago.

I think this model is interesting, and viable, but in this case, poorly implemented. Let me back up a second.

I like the GB site. I like the community. I like the stuff they do with video. I like some of their podcast stuff. I'm not personally a big Gerstmann fan.

With all that said, I think this was badly handled. They've done a better job than I expected building their site over the last year. They have some big goals. But let's be perfectly honest -- it doesn't take $250k a year to run a weekly podcast that's an hour or two long. It takes very little. If you have any doubt. consider GWJ. I have no insight into the REAL numbers, but I feel confident in suggesting that we raise a few points less than that a year during our few-week donation drive, and we are by no means a decimal place off the download statistics on a week-to-week basis.

The difference is one of intent. GB is a business, and one which clearly has not been able to support itself on the back of traditional media models (advertising on the site, or on the 'cast). So this is an attempt to enlist the support of their most die-hard, connected fans (podcast listers) to fund the part of their business model that doesn't pay for itself (everythign else).

That's why I find it disturbing. If I genuinely believed it cost them $250k to run the 'cast, I'd be fine with it. But the only reason the podcasters don't have other sources of income, not requiring all this extra comp, is because their running a website and doing videos, and. and. and.

So if the "value" is in the podcast, why are they charging so much?

The irony here is that if they'd run an NPR-style pledge drive, I probably would have given them $50. But because it's being held up as a model, I can wait. It's no different than This American Life. I gladly hand Ira Glass my $25 a year, but in no small part because I get it for free on my NPR station (which I also give $100 a year too.) Reeks a lot of Adam Curry Circa 1999 or so.

hbi2k wrote:

At least as much as the Bombcast, I signed up for a membership to support the Quick Looks. Streaming video bandwidth doesn't come cheap, and those things give me a much better idea of what the actual day-to-day experience of playing a game is going to be like than a standard video review ever could. Things that reviews tend to gloss over like interface, level design, loading times, ease of learning the controls, etc. are thrown into sharp relief when nobody's editing out the boring parts or using only the clips that include lines that can be taken out of context to sound snarky. Nobody else is really doing anything like it and I consider it a valuable service, so I feel like I have to support it.

I just want to chime in to support this point. Bombcast isn't absolute favorite gaming podcast, but I've grown to really value the Quick Looks they provide. There have been several titles in the past year that I've purchased or avoided purely based on information I've been able to gather from Quick Looks... information that I was not able to gather from reviews or discussion for reasons you have described. I'm not aware of any other sites that provide a comparable service, so I also have a desire to support it.

On another note, I would have paid $50 to save Idle Thumbs

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Iridium884 wrote:

I'm still a bit concerned.

$350k/yr (and that's assuming that everyone right now stays for the year) is not a heck of a lot of money. Factoring in bandwidth, facilities, and, the biggest cost of them all, labor (salaries and benefits), I still can't seem them running anything but a large deficit in the future. Maybe this just lowers the burn rate?

Whiskey Media has been able to maintain three websites since 2008 (and Comic Vine has been around since 2006). They were somehow able to make money during that time. They were apparently doing well enough to justify adding two more websites this year and movie to a new (what appears to be much larger) facility. I assume that magical income source still exists and that the subscription stuff is there to supplement it.

It's probably also worth pointing out that WM/GB does do advertising from time to time on the website and in videos, but it's rare enough to forget that it exists.

And on a personal note, after much thinking, I decided to subscribe the annual to support them. As others have said, I don't like the way they handled the situation, but I would be much more sad to see those guys close shop.

rabbit wrote:

I think this model is interesting, and viable, but in this case, poorly implemented. Let me back up a second.

I like the GB site. I like the community. I like the stuff they do with video. I like some of their podcast stuff. I'm not personally a big Gerstmann fan.

With all that said, I think this was badly handled. They've done a better job than I expected building their site over the last year. They have some big goals. But let's be perfectly honest -- it doesn't take $250k a year to run a weekly podcast that's an hour or two long. It takes very little. If you have any doubt. consider GWJ. I have no insight into the REAL numbers, but I feel confident in suggesting that we raise a few points less than that a year during our few-week donation drive, and we are by no means a decimal place off the download statistics on a week-to-week basis.

The difference is one of intent. GB is a business, and one which clearly has not been able to support itself on the back of traditional media models (advertising on the site, or on the 'cast). So this is an attempt to enlist the support of their most die-hard, connected fans (podcast listers) to fund the part of their business model that doesn't pay for itself (everythign else).

That's why I find it disturbing. If I genuinely believed it cost them $250k to run the 'cast, I'd be fine with it. But the only reason the podcasters don't have other sources of income, not requiring all this extra comp, is because their running a website and doing videos, and. and. and.

So if the "value" is in the podcast, why are they charging so much?

The irony here is that if they'd run an NPR-style pledge drive, I probably would have given them $50. But because it's being held up as a model, I can wait. It's no different than This American Life. I gladly hand Ira Glass my $25 a year, but in no small part because I get it for free on my NPR station (which I also give $100 a year too.) Reeks a lot of Adam Curry Circa 1999 or so.

I think you're misinterpreting the entire situation. They weren't ever saying they needed all that money just for the podcast. It is for the amount of video content they produce, gear for it, salaries for everyone (I'd estimate the company has 30-40 employees), and for new sites they want to launch such as a music site. They also said a few times that as it was they'd have to put people on/hire folks to develop new advertisement methods instead of new ways to improve the sites, and they'd rather the latter.

The reason for monetizing the podcast (which isn't happening now) was that it took about 15 hours of labor a week to produce with absolutely no return outside of mindshare in the industry, which is nice but doesn't pay the bills. They were looking for *extra* stuff they could give to subscribers, and when the podcast is by far the most popular thing, they decided to mess with it a little (again, important to note that everyone would get two hours of podcast per week after next week). I can't disagree that their plans for the podcast were a little weird, but it's moot now.

I know it sounds like I'm drinking the company koolaid, but I trust those guys.

MannishBoy wrote:
TheCounselor wrote:

While you may want the old model to work, millions of others have spoken, and the fact is that advertising on the internet is unlikely to ever become a profitable venture for media companies. Google can make it work because their visitors are looking for specific things, and millions of them go there with the intent to spend money. When I go to Giant Bomb, or any of the other media sites I frequent, I'm going to browse for interesting content, and more often than not I'm not looking to buy something. Different strokes, I guess, but I hope that this works, so that I can still consume the content that I value.

Actually, I think internet advertising in general is increasing at the fastest pace as it has a higher targetability than print, TV, or radio.

In terms of amount of it—sure. In terms of profitability, I’d love to see an article or two about it. Not trying to sound the part of the jerk, just the first time I would ever have heard that online banners or mid-stream ads in podcasts were becoming more profitable.

MannishBoy wrote:

As said above, I could see myself paying $25 a year or so for some minor perks I don't care about very much, but not $50.

And that’s super fair and valid. It’s unlike what was more irritating me, the attitude of those who feel content should simply bloom from a void on the internet without any intention of supporting what they like.

rabbit wrote:

But let's be perfectly honest -- it doesn't take $250k a year to run a weekly podcast that's an hour or two long. It takes very little. If you have any doubt. consider GWJ.

rabbit wrote:

So this is an attempt to enlist the support of their most die-hard, connected fans (podcast listers) to fund the part of their business model that doesn't pay for itself (everythign else).

That's why I find it disturbing. If I genuinely believed it cost them $250k to run the 'cast, I'd be fine with it. But the only reason the podcasters don't have other sources of income, not requiring all this extra comp, is because their running a website and doing videos, and. and. and.

Where I agree with you is that they don’t do even mention this membership info on the GB page (it is on the Whiskey Media page). I do see an argument that the appeal for funds is purely focused on the podcast listeners.

Otherwise I have some disagreements. I don’t think they are asking for membership just to fund their podcast. Currently that is 93% of my interaction with them, so that’s where I have mostly leeched enjoyment from their work. But, when I pony up the $50, I won’t be viewing this as just giving $50 for the podcast. I am contributing to them because I want their business to continue and I am willing to contribute to their success in order to continue to receive a product I appreciate. I don’t see their other business expenditures (“doing videos, and. and. and.”) as a drain away from what they should be giving me. Even though I mostly want the podcast, I am contributing to them as a group and not just with the intent of this paying for the podcast (tho honestly when I look at value, this is where the majority of the value is going to be for me).

Dyni wrote:

On another note, I would have paid $50 to save Idle Thumbs :(

Absolutely. I’m tired of losing exceptional podcasts—there’s really not enough of them for them to keep closing out.

Rabbit, if you have the time I would suggest going and listening to their memberships podcast here. It explains in much greater detail what they're doing with this program and the podcast is only one small part of it.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Iridium884 wrote:

I'm still a bit concerned.

$350k/yr (and that's assuming that everyone right now stays for the year) is not a heck of a lot of money. Factoring in bandwidth, facilities, and, the biggest cost of them all, labor (salaries and benefits), I still can't seem them running anything but a large deficit in the future. Maybe this just lowers the burn rate?

Whiskey Media has been able to maintain three websites since 2008 (and Comic Vine has been around since 2006). They were somehow able to make money during that time. They were apparently doing well enough to justify adding two more websites this year and movie to a new (what appears to be much larger) facility. I assume that magical income source still exists and that the subscription stuff is there to supplement it.

The membership podcast seemed to imply that it was VC/seed money. My guess is that Shelby (the head of this and who previously ran CNET) got some VC/angel funding and, like most internet business (I don't believe Twitter makes any money yet), you set it up and then you worry about the money. Perhaps it's gotten to the point where they can't find more venture capital or the investors want to see a profitability plan.

Also, to rabbit's point, the podcast isn't what cost so much, but it is their biggest asset. It's "give us money to support the website/labor/production that creates the podcast." That whole live show was to support the membership drive ostensibly.

Now another question:

Now that they agreed/caved to keeping the Bombcast the same (a good idea), the value proposition to support them is even less except as an act to see them keep going on with the website. It will be interesting to see what they add as another carrot to the membership proposal.

Another point, though, that is far-too overlooked: why is the conversation about covering technical costs? They are looking to support themselves, something that the conference call staff doesn't have to take into consideration when you run your drive. Put more specifically, GWJ has an annual drive to support the site and conference call. While I have no idea how much it raises, I hope that you guys would consider it successful with a lot of contributors. And even if this is the case, not a dime of this begins to start paying any of your salaries-- something that GB (and Whiskey Media) does need to account for.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Rabbit, if you have the time I would suggest going and listening to their memberships podcast here. It explains in much greater detail what they're doing with this program and the podcast is only one small part of it.

They also make the salient point about the issues with the podcast:

1) They operate as a small team, so it's not like a bunch of guys editing a huge site like "IGN" sitting in a room, it's work like reviews, news, editing video content, going out to do interviews, etc. that comes to a halt because they are almost the entire key staff. The labour expense is detrimental.

2) The podcast has become extremely popular. As in according to even Whiskey Media's own stats, the podcast surpassed 100,000 listeners a long time ago, but that isn't directly turning into traffic for their website. This makes the bandwidth costs extremely high. I don't know GWJ's numbers but I would assume significantly higher.

3) Despite this popularity, advertisers have absolutely no interest in sponsoring it. This "extremely popular money hole" was the same problem 1UP was dealing with their content, which as we know they could never solve.

rabbit wrote:

The irony here is that if they'd run an NPR-style pledge drive, I probably would have given them $50. But because it's being held up as a model, I can wait. It's no different than This American Life. I gladly hand Ira Glass my $25 a year, but in no small part because I get it for free on my NPR station (which I also give $100 a year too.) Reeks a lot of Adam Curry Circa 1999 or so.

Well, that might seem ideal to you, but most people would not give out of goodwill. They expect a business model that gets them some sort of return. Like I said earlier, This American Life is the most popular podcast in terms of listeners by an astronomically large margin, and they also have a system where you can't freely download any episodes from their backlog. Yet despite this, the advertising they get for the podcasts and all their donation drive money still almost always fails to even allow them to break even on their bandwidth costs, not to mention the labour and production costs. It's only a sustainable model because they get public tax money and huge corporate/organization donations on top of it.

^^^As a corollary, I would point out that Whiskey Media is a commercial entity, while Chicago Public Radio is not. That is a significant difference when people are talking about making donations. I understand why I should donate to support a quality program put out by the latter, but I don't understand why I should simply hand over money (without getting a product in return, aka, a fundraiser) to a company that is trying to turn a profit and is simply unable to do so.

Edit: This thread has reminded me that I've failed to give a donation to This American Life recently. Going to do it now.

Wait, GWJ is getting close to 100,000 listeners? Per show?

Holy f*ck.

I will say that since I've been here, we (meaning, everyone but Certis and Ely, who actually collect checks and pay bills), or maybe I should just say "I" only focus on two numbers:

-- How many interesting comments do we get on articles.
-- How many people contribute, in one way or another.

That's because first and foremost GWJ has been (speaking for myself) about people, not traffic. Sure, we've grown a ton. We get some big hits here and there, and the podcast has been a total surprise (to me). But I'd personally be far more stoked to have 1,000 people contribute a dollar than to have 10 people contribute $1,000, because each of those one dollar donation implies someone we've connected with in an interesting way.

I know it is a total coincidence, but funny how the Donation Drive starts right after this was announced.

kaptainbarbosa wrote:

From the Whiskey Media twitter (they hit 5k 6 minutes ago):

The Bombcast is officially free for everyone... Forever. Thanks everyone! A replacement for subscribers (something new!) coming next week.

Great to hear. I still want to contribute in some way. I'm still have technical problems giving them money!

rabbit wrote:

I will say that since I've been here, we (meaning, everyone but Certis and Ely, who actually collect checks and pay bills), or maybe I should just say "I" only focus on two numbers:

-- How many interesting comments do we get on articles.
-- How many people contribute, in one way or another.

That's because first and foremost GWJ has been (speaking for myself) about people, not traffic. Sure, we've grown a ton. We get some big hits here and there, and the podcast has been a total surprise (to me). But I'd personally be far more stoked to have 1,000 people contribute a dollar than to have 10 people contribute $1,000, because each of those one dollar donation implies someone we've connected with in an interesting way.

While I do think some of the comparison between GWJ and GB isn't fully equitable (this is their job, not just an extension of their job or a conversation amongst friends) I think you are hitting nails on heads here. I think that should be some concern from them about mindshare and losing some influence (touching that many people). This kind of rubbed me the wrong way on the podcast explaining membership, because instead of seeming to understand this they were all giggles and ridiculous. The giggles is what I tune in for, but I still am not sure if they get (from that cast) the potential negative of what they are doing. And this from someone who plans on donating.

Is it weird that I'm more likely to donate now that they've remained free than I ever was when they were going to split their content?

It feels weird.

Thin_J wrote:

Is it weird that I'm more likely to donate now that they've remained free than I ever was when they were going to split their content?

It feels weird.

I think it's that you're more likely to donate than you were to become a member.

So does anyone else find it kind of funny that after all that discussion about how making a 2 hour podcast was a complete sinkhole into valuable time and resources, they're now on their second week of making the podcast last 3 hours?

kaptainbarbosa wrote:

So does anyone else find it kind of funny that after all that discussion about how making a 2 hour podcast was a complete sinkhole into valuable time and resources, they're now on their second week of making the podcast last 3 hours?

They're quite a bit richer now, easier to justify it I guess.

And this week was 2:45, not 3. Splitting hairs, but they usually went to 2:20 anyway.

I haven't made it through either one in full, yet.

The release list really isn't doing it for me lately. Maybe if they only picked one game a week to do their schtick on.

demonbox wrote:

In terms of amount of it—sure. In terms of profitability, I’d love to see an article or two about it. Not trying to sound the part of the jerk, just the first time I would ever have heard that online banners or mid-stream ads in podcasts were becoming more profitable.

You know companies like Google and yahoo are really big ad companies, right?

Curious, is anyone who signed up getting really laggy performance with the HD videos? My old work computer couldn't play them but I've tried at home and they constantly lag out on me. I had a 5mbit connection and when watching my LAN traffic meter on my desktop, I can see that it isn't my connection keeping up, it's their server not delivering a consistent stream of data. I've got very good routing on this connection. Just wondering if it's happening to anyone else before I e-mail them.

Double Post-- Sorry.

MannishBoy wrote:
demonbox wrote:

In terms of amount of it—sure. In terms of profitability, I’d love to see an article or two about it. Not trying to sound the part of the jerk, just the first time I would ever have heard that online banners or mid-stream ads in podcasts were becoming more profitable.

You know companies like Google and yahoo are really big ad companies, right?

One of those two examples is profitable (if I remember correctly Yahoo was not doing very well not that long ago). And in terms of a broader market, even if Yahoo is doing well (again don't think they are) that would be two.

And those are the ones who host the ads, not the sites who use banners to generate revenue-- two completely different business. Really inaccurate comparison. If GWJ uses a banner it isn't in competition with Google-- it is likely using Google, or another company, to assist with the banner that is on their page.

So yeah, listening to people talk about trying to use ad revenue from banners from a number of years-- going to stick to that I'm pretty sure it generally isn't profitable, even if one were to come up with a few examples to the contrary (www.drudgereport.com being an exception I am aware of).

Also, while I still plan on throwing them some bones with the GWJ donation drive coming up at this same time I made a clear choice as to who I wanted to donate to first, and I'll have to hit Whiskey Media up next pay period.

demonbox wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:
demonbox wrote:

In terms of amount of it—sure. In terms of profitability, I’d love to see an article or two about it. Not trying to sound the part of the jerk, just the first time I would ever have heard that online banners or mid-stream ads in podcasts were becoming more profitable.

You know companies like Google and yahoo are really big ad companies, right?

One of those two examples is profitable (if I remember correctly Yahoo was not doing very well not that long ago). And in terms of a broader market, even if Yahoo is doing well (again don't think they are) that would be two.

Both are profitable. Yahoo made about a half billion dollars last year.

And those are the ones who host the ads, not the sites who use banners to generate revenue-- two completely different business. Really inaccurate comparison. If GWJ uses a banner it isn't in competition with Google-- it is likely using Google, or another company, to assist with the banner that is on their page.

They both host and display ads various ways. The point is that internet ad revenue is relatively strong due to the targetability vs more traditional ad types.

As has been said above, the goal isn't to make money on the podcast specifically, it is to have the podcast support the site by creating attachment by users and listeners.

If you want a small business example of a site that makes money off of net advertising, specifically on video content, look to twit.tv. Leo Laporte has said that revenues last year were somewhere around $2.5 million.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Curious, is anyone who signed up getting really laggy performance with the HD videos? My old work computer couldn't play them but I've tried at home and they constantly lag out on me. I had a 5mbit connection and when watching my LAN traffic meter on my desktop, I can see that it isn't my connection keeping up, it's their server not delivering a consistent stream of data. I've got very good routing on this connection. Just wondering if it's happening to anyone else before I e-mail them.

Have you tried switching from 'streaming' to 'progressive'? That fixed it for me.

So I gotta' say I'm getting less impressed with what my membership bought me. I'm still getting lag on the HD videos though less than before. However, on the majority of HD videos that go more than about 15-18 minutes, severe distortion appears on the lower 20% of so of the video until it completes. I've tried playing the same video multiple times and it always happens at the time place. I complained on Twitter and was told by them to e-mail their support address. I got a response back saying "We know there's some issues with the HD videos, we haven't figured everything out yet but the guys are working on it." I'm sorry? Why are you charging people money when you haven't even fully tested the features you're asking them to pay for yet? Really doubt I'm going to continue my membership.