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Note: This comment has been edited to reflect the fact that the product and now the service that inspired the idea outlined above have both been discontinued. To kick off a discussion around pricing/service levels here's the blurb about pricing from the paid beta outlined above (here again is their beta announcement).
I can't provide a link to their standard plan (unfortunately myDropWizard recently shut down) but this was their price/service mix for their offering. $250/mo
Keeping in mind the beta was not a success (I previously onboarded both founders to Open Collective's Slack, so I'll try to get more detail about what went right and wrong), I'm wondering if something close to this price/service point could still work. Considering OpenProducer will 'not' be including hosting in this offer (we're still discussing whether or not we'll provide in the future), would this $250/month price point work if the service was essentially 'platform updates, critical site maintenance, + small block of time (1 hr / month or so) for simple configuration/setup/training/etc? |
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So I think we have a clearer picture of the types of work we should refer to Blake and Decubing as part of an ongoing service. @bbertucc @tonyzeoli I'm still murky on if/how we can all work 'together' on the platform beta we've been discussing here and outlined in this section of the google doc. I left a few questions and comments in the doc regarding process, pricing, and capacity. Would be great if you both could skim through and comment here or in the doc with any thoughts and questions. I'm planning on reconnecting with the program director of NFCB to discuss partnership on a variety of services for their member stations next week. Also would like to reconnect with Newspack (Blake - I'll forward our previous correspondence) about partnership/collaboration on services and Newspack itself. There are also a bunch of potential customers, partners, collaborators, contributors, and funders in the Open Collective Slack and ecosystem. Once we're clear on how we can work together (or roles we need to fill), I'll follow up on all these opportunities. Semi-related side note - now that I know more about what it's all about, I'm pretty confident OpenProducer can include/refer/contribute to https://equalify.app/. Similar thing for the Drupal, WordPress, and Open Source contribution collectives that are in the process of ramping up! |
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@bbertucc @tonyzeoli Check out the description for proof we're close(r) to launching our program and services. Didn't think it would take us another year, but it took that long to become more active and build relationships in the WordPress Community (specifically the upstart Sustainability Team) needed to fill capacity and training gaps. We still need to solidify partnerships with Newspack and other bespoke/full service providers. Thought I'd restart that part of the conversation by asking if your agencies still (or could) provide Newspack services. |
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@gusaus So, if the call is for me to work specifically with the implementation phase after onboarding, I'm on board - pun intended, LOL. At a high level, Open Producer offers a service, which I see is broken down by price to organizations at certain budget levels. I would suggest that we take in all opportunities and not outsource them to Newspack themselves or something like WordPress VIP. We can take on and scale those partners, but there would be an additional higher cost for partners with high traffic volume. I suggest an initial setup fee and then monthly pricing not just monthly pricing. There may be some stations in our network that want to move to this model, but I'd have to be able to point them to a website with a clearly described service offering answering their cost/benefit questions. In terms of developers, I have Tony Hayes and another developer, Jeffry Marx, who might participate. However, their fees are in the $65 to $85 an hour range. So, we'd need to first have pre-developed theme options for the media organization to choose from. Newspack and Radio Station are plugins, not themes. I don't know that custom solutions are scalable. Pro-radio has a theme solution, so we'll need to have one too= and that requires some initial cost to build. |
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@tonyzeoli I'm still envisioning your primary OpenProducer roles being:
Does that sound about right (and manageable)? If yes, I'd like to lock down the price/service/partner mix in this recently updated Google doc where all these elements are already outlined. Then we can surface what we clarify and decide in this public discussion. |
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I created this section on our wiki to flesh out this process. @jtorreggiani @tonyzeoli Read through and you may (or may not) see how you and your orgs and/or projects could participate and benefit from this type of format. Specifically -
Please follow up with any questions and comments here. |
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Pasting in this Slack follow-up from @jtorreggiani and will respond here...
So there are essentially two parts to this pilot. 1) contributing to our own flavor of the Newspack platform - for this, I'm hoping @tonyzeoli will be able to product manage, but we'll need to find another expert if he's not available. With regards to roles needed to complete this project, I've made an initial pass on our wiki that Tony (or another PM will fine tune). 2) contributing to our Newspack pilot - for this, I'm also hoping Tony will be able to take the PM lead (this time project manager) and help finalize our process and ideally lead the initial onboarding with pilot participants where we'd identify specific needs (including roles SPEC might be able to fill).
Any references to SPEC contributions came from discussions we've had on the topic for several months. I tried to summarize in this discussion and provide 'my' assessment on how SPEC could contribute in the short term. Ideally, you could read over and respond there.
So I actually had to google 'project charter'... yes, it seems like that would certainly help. Ideally, the project managers in this discussion could lead that... then again, it could be a great entry point for this person. Either way, we should probably start by creating an issue or discussion in the appropriate repo. Hopefully, I've provided additional clarity in terms of roles SPEC contributors may be able to fill. I also understand SPEC (beginning with you) may not have the capacity to fill the wide variety of 'WordPress' roles we identify. That said, I believe we'll have an opportunity to collaborate (mainly because we're already having a discussion in Open Collective's Slack) with WordPress community groups like the training team once we have a collective sense for our needs and how we could contribute towards meeting/exceeding their goals. The collaboration should create opportunities to find SPEC contributors (including mentors, PMs, and other WordPress specialists) and find them jobs (again Newspack is a great entry point as it's a project of the largest company/employer in WordPress - https://automattic.com/work-with-us/). Does that clarify things? What do you think we need to move forward? |
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I should also point out that we don't need to limit pilot participants to those requiring radio and podcast functionality. Broadening our pilot to include news orgs and other publishers would create an entry point for contributing to Newspack and collaborating with their team 'without' being dependant on @tonyzeoli to PM (any participant sites 'not' requiring radio and podcasting). I'd like to solidify our relationship with SPEC before moving forward. Ideally, we can do that after a bit more feedback and discussion with @jtorreggiani. |
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@tonyzeoli With regards to having some good OpenProducer/Radio Station examples to showcase we could probably start with the following clients/partners.
Are there any clients/partners you've worked with that might want to make the jump? If we have enough that are potentially interested, possibly we could run a paid beta as outlined in the issue description. This discussion (the most popular all-time) in the LibreTime community could also be a source for beta participants or customers. |
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@tonyzeoli @jtorreggiani Following up on this part of the discussion as I think working with existing customers/parters would provide us with an opportunity to solidify our process (see our wiki), pricing https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/discussions/26#discussioncomment-2562601, and the collaboration with partners like SPEC, Netmix, Newspack/WordPress, and Open Collective (see https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/discussions/26#discussioncomment-2488041). We can schedule an onboarding meeting beginning with Just Jazz Foundation once we reach a consensus around pricing/services, collaboration, and compensation. On that call, we can go over needs and determine how best to 'meet' based on their available budget, staff, training needs, etc. Much of this has already been outlined in this Google doc which you both should already have edit access. Think this could be a good way to solidify our process and collaboration? |
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@gusaus I don't think I have any client partners that want to make the jump. Here's my reality - I need a firm offer presented to me fo compensation to PM this project. I can certainly fit the work in if I know that a. I have confirmed revenue coming from this project, and b. replace current projects with this revenue. At this point, I'm tied to Radio Station PRO, of course. But outside of that, I have my wife's company I'm doing digital marketing for (Google Ads), World Methodist Council who recently became a client, and Univeral Hip Hop Museum, which is becoming more than just 10 to 15 hours a month. It's turning into like 40 hours a month. I have yet to push those funds in the Open Collective account to Tony to start pushing on breaking out the player for the free version too, which limited features. We can't just give away the farm, but it does make sense to have a freemium player experience just like it makes sense to have Radio Station be freemium, as it stands now. We are breaking the player out as a stand-alone product very soon and once that happens, we can then limit the feature set and release a free version. |
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...and a little over two months later we have one project on the list enrolled in our pilot and I'm planning on seeing if the other two will join. That said, as current clients/partners.. and due to the fact that we've yet to sort out the price/service level (or finalize who will be providing services), I'm asking for a one-time $500 donation to the Open Collective 'project' I set up for the pilot (we'll add some copy/sponsor tiers/etc once we work out the details). Those funds will primarily go to me for platform updates, migration, setting up their collectives, and other ongoing work. @tonyzeoli I'm setting aside $100 for you (if you want it/can do it) to be part of an initial call to discuss the next phase of their website. That's where we'd discuss any needs for anything custom and we'd subsequently scope that out (IF they had the budget). Keep in mind that OpenProducer would 'not' be the entity behind any custom/bespoke work. Ideally, we'll have some options on partners and price/service levels for all the other participants and customers sorted out in this section of the discussion. Does that make sense? |
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...and over one year later we still have just the one participant enrolled but nobody else since we've yet to solidify our price/service mix (due to the same lack of provider/partner time/capacity). That said, the relationships we've been building in the WordPress (specifically the new Sustainability Team and Open Collective communities over the past several months should enable us to resolve any capacity blockers on our end. At the same time, Newspack (platform and offering) continues to grow but the pricing, criteria, and WordPress.com dependency makes it out of reach for a wide range of users and customers. I think our offering(s) (we've been sharing this with potential customers/pilot participants) could help bring Newspack to a much larger group of customers and contributors. If our price/service mix is complimentary, we could potentially partner and upsell customers meeting their criteria to the Newspack service. Assuming some of that makes sense, what if we worked out some sort of arrangement where we'd collaborate with their team to extend their service and platform and direct any of our customers that could afford it (ie. organizations with gross revenues above $250,000 a year) to their hosted service? Let's continue to work out the details in this google doc (read through/suggest/comment and respond to any relevant comments) so we can have something to share with potential pilot participants/customers in the near future. |
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@tonyzeoli Per our recent convos in Slack, I think we're at a point where we can announce and deliver services once we work out the details here. As mentioned in Slack, I'd recommend the following -
While we obviously won't be launching any service in 2021, I'm hoping we'd be able to solidify our plan now that we have the tools and capacity to deliver. |
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Keeping https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/discussions/26#discussioncomment-2492495 in mind, I proposed to @tonyzeoli in a Slack discussion we proceed with these recommendations but focus first on solidifying, announcing, and selling the Newspack / Radio Beta (as an OpenProducer service). Following that (or simultaneously if realistic) we'd launch the bespoke offering(s) as a Netmix service. IF that sounds like a good approach (please chime in @tonyzeoli), we'd 1) focus discussions around the OpenProducer offering here; and 2) move discussions around the Netmix offering(s) under the appropriate repo on https://github.com/netmix. Does that make sense? |
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@gusaus In terms of an SaaS offering, that would be like launching a competitor to Mixlr and all stations using the platform that perform music would need to be licensed by ASCAP, BMI similar to Live365. My initial goal is to work with Live365 onboard their stations to use our plugin and explore that partnership, so an SaaS solution would be a direct competitor to their offering and I hesitate to go down that road today to jeopardize any goodwill I've already secured with that organization. I do think it's compelling, but Tony and I wanted to focus on the Netmix directory and not a full-on SaaS. There are WP plugins to easily set this up and run the comnbined Newspack/Radio Station plugin on top of, but I think this would all require a level of investment that we don't have at the moment. |
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@tonyzeoli At this point in time we all agree our own SaaS offering is not in the cards. Especially since we're already working with hosting partners like Netmix and WP Engine! |
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Also should point out that our goal of releasing a DIY version of the platform (see the platform beta goals and process) is more attainable since we're contributing to and extending a well funded/maintained project that already exists. In fact we've already packaged together and maintain DIY/downloadable and hosted versions of Newspack (without the radio functionality). Instead of residing in a seperate repo, we'll develop and release a branch (in the same repo) consisting of Newspack and additional features/plugins such as -
Funds from this type of paid beta and related service offering(s) would enable development and release of features we've been discussing here. |
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Right now, software as a service is owned by Radio.co and Live365. Live365
is a valued partner. They already are entrenched and have licensing, as
well. They are the only ones with licensing at the moment. Radio.co,
Live365, and Mixlr own the market today. Without proper funding, it's
improbably we build an SaaS offering unless there is angel investment at
$500,000 to $1,000,000 just to get it off the ground. I've learned with
Radio Station PRO that it is a huge effort to get people to switch to your
platform and can take years if you try and do it DIY. Look what's happening
to Azuracast, which struggles along with no funding and no clear path to
revenue. So, it's wise to table this for now and focus on services and
integrations. SaaS will come, but only when funding is available. That's a
big ask and you can't just build an SaaS and have few customers to speak
of. I've seen this too many times and I'm not willing to go down that road
right now.
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I'm assuming you saw my comment and are just validating NO SaaS is the right move. Especially when customers like Rocco are thrilled with the hosting options we do support. That said, let's finalize the services we CAN provide; create the marketing page(s) wherever appropriate; and start rounding up customers and beta participants ASAP. Skim through this comment/section focusing on bespoke services - Same deal with this section on the platform beta - If that's confusing we can hash everything out in this Google doc - it's a bit outdated, but we can bring it up to speed pretty quick. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UYP6OfxlTn6WqcxycZ2RqGBHMcngBayDVe-ksAGxd5g/edit?usp=sharing |
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Hi everyone,
I'm workling on following up on this thread but don't have the bandwidth at
the moment to properly message everyone. I'll try to get back to everyone
after the weekend.
…On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 4:09 PM Gus Austin ***@***.***> wrote:
@bbertucc <https://github.com/bbertucc> Thanks again for the additional
info. I'm in the process of parsing this discussion and updating the Google
doc referenced in the description.
it might make sense for @tonyzeoli <https://github.com/tonyzeoli> and
Netmix to market the radio service as part of https://radiostation.pro/
and then work with Decubing whenever there's a need.
Just to be clear - could y'all also collaborate on this type of offering?
—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub
<https://github.com/OpenProducer/community/discussions/26#discussioncomment-3928105>,
or unsubscribe
<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WOY4WF3THIPGZDET3WDWEGRFZANCNFSM5SLL65EA>
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You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID:
***@***.***>
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Thanks @tonyzeoli Hopefully we can solidify our offering(s) and working relationship in this one comment and referenced google doc. Based on the fact that it's looking like we can run 'all' bespoke services through Blake and his agency, that should enable you to craft a realistic role/time commitment with a focus on OpenProducer's platform beta and service offering. Again we should be able to work out the details in the google doc. Ping me in Slack if you'd like to follow up on anything. |
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OpenProducer is preparing to launch fundraising events, a hackathon series, and a Newspack/WordPress service offering with our partners.
To solidify, we’re launching the following pilot that will provide training, mentorship, and technical assistance to independent publishers, media, and arts organizations. This will help them grow their organizational capacity and sustainability over time.
We'll update and refine the process based on subsequent discussion and feedback in the comments.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A DRAFT IN PROGRESS
Indie Media and Arts Pilot
OpenProducer’s Media and Arts Pilot provides indie media and arts orgs with training, mentorship and technical assistance while growing the organizational capacity to sustain over time.
Sustainability
Training
Process
Once enrolled, OpenProducer and partners would do the following:
Pricing
Organizations meeting our criteria can participate by paying for two months of platform support or making a one time donation for an equivalent amount:
Criteria
The criteria for participation includes the following:
Additionally, applicants are required to make their staff available to participate in the pilot.
We will give consideration to sites that have shown both editorial and financial success in their respective markets, sites whose models may offer insights applicable to other media and arts organizations, and sites that have faced significant technical challenges while implementing their strategies.
Services
Platform support
OpenProducer offers the following support for the Newspack platform that we manage and maintain:
Our Newspack Platform support services are designed to enhance your platform's performance, security, and revenue potential while keeping you informed and connected with the latest industry insights and updates.
Pricing
The pricing structure for the Newspack platform OpenProducer maintains is as follows, based on an organization's annual revenue:
Platform migration and development
Our platform migration and development process is designed to ensure a seamless transition for digital publishers, and it is usually included in our hosted platform support package.
Here is an overview of the platform migration process:
Timeline
The timeline for the launch process can vary based on several factors, including:
Typically, sites can be launched within a range of two to four months. The first half of this period is focused on staging and data migration, while the second half involves styling, configuration, and training. This collaborative approach ensures a successful transition to the Newspack platform tailored to your specific needs.
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