Financial support-- an idea

[jgkojak]

It seems like Mike is a victim of his own success-- especially with Macca undergoing this very welcome late career boom--

We get more people on the site, that ups the bandwidth use, etc.

So the question is:

How do we draw people to the site and entice them into the community such that they could pay for key features.

My thought:

Maybe we change the nature of Macca Radio. Instead of streaming audio (which is what takes up the most bandwidth it appears)- what if it went to a podcast format? We could pay a subscription fee to download a 1-2 hr. daily Maccaradio podcast, along with specialized programming (Breakfast with the Beatles, etc.) and Mike could still do occassional live broadcasts every Friday night or on special occassions.

I know if I downloaded a podcast to play at work it would work just as well AND would have the added bonus that I could slap it onto my flash drive and play it in my car (woohoo- maccaradio for the car!)

[JennyWren]

jgkojak, I'm glad to see that someone else is thinking about alternatives that might help Mike out.

A podcast would be OK, better than nothing, and I'd buy a subscription. I'd be sorry to lose the large mix of tunes we have now, but I"m all for whatever it takes to keep MaccaCentral alive in some form.

JennyWren

[jgkojak]

Thinking about it--

I wonder if Mike could do automated podcasts (i.e. digitally record the feed from an internal maccaradio stream) and make, say, 4 of them available every week. These could be automated or he could even do special program sequences.

For instance...

Instead of logging into the maccaradio "stream"-- could I click on 1 of the available podcasts (maybe the last 20 or so would be available) to either download or stream? Would that help the bandwidth problem?

Also... how much of a bandwidth issue is having multiple streams vs. 1 FM quality stream- I'll take FM quality over CD quality if that means we keep Maccaradio going?

Also... if its a question of ditching it all or just keeping the forums open as a blog, I'd keep the forums open.