The Future of MPN?

[jazzpiano88]

It is sounding like there needs to be an "owner" that takes on the site who runs it as he/she sees fit.

 

Piano World and VI Control are a couple examples I know of.   Mike Verta established Redbanned.com and I believe he does it without a huge outlay although it has much less bandwidth.

[Motif88]

This is forum is more valuable than many substack subscription that I pay $5/month for. So, I'm in for a subscription model plus a tip jar for MPN.

 

One rate or tiered rates based on access/content?

 

I'm sure you have the math on the number of users/traffic, etc to determine the appropriate fee(s).

[Dave Bryce]

1 minute ago, JazzPiano88 said:

It is sounding like there needs to be an "owner" that takes on the site who runs it as he/she sees fit.

 

 

You may be right.  We should go find someone to do that. 😉

 

dB

[Doerfler]

7 minutes ago, Dave Bryce said:

 

I figured the Patreon thing was the best way to go.  Different people use the forum differently, and each one values it in their own way.  I’d like to believe folks should be able to pay what they think is a fair price.  Maybe that’s naive on my part…?

 

dB

 

I don't believe naivety plays a part here. Coming up with what is practical has proved to be a conundrum, hence this thread. 

[Motif88]

Never even noticed the Patreon menu. No wonder there are very few takers. $57/month? What's the value prop if you're already giving it away?

 

I go back to $5-$7/month with a discount for those that pay upfront for an annual subscription.

[The Real MC]

subscription for me

[Dave Bryce]

Really good feedback so far.  Thank you, guys.

 

dB

 

 

[David Emm]

Subscription at some level seems inevitable as a matter of necessity. Its no small point that someone has to regularly turn certain knobs for the site to work. Its a specialty resource that's largely unlike the others. This is in part due to moderation that denies people the option of Twittery verbal bitch-slapping. That's a major plus that keeps the audio magic front and center. Just give me a heads-up a few months before its time to re-up, as with the old KEYBOARD notification post cards.

[marino]

I'm not sure what the best solution would be, and I'll gladily follow what the admins and the members decide. That said, I'll share my thoughts.

 

- I would accept ads no problem, but i would prefer for them to be at least music-related. This is to avoid generic, click-sucking links which, among other things, wouldn't encourage members to click on them.

- About ad blockers: I have noticed that some sites require you to whitelist the site in your ad blocker to let you in. Although not a super-nice solution, it could be a way to overcome the problem.

- About the matter of extra content, etc.: While I would love to see the Boddicker material, that's not the reason I keep visiting KC. The main reason is the interaction with the other members, a community of expert, knowledgeable players. Along the years, I have received countless good advice from the people here, and I don't think I need any extra motivation to keep coming back.

- Edit: I would accept subscriptions as well, but I don't think it would be the best way to attract new members, or even to keep all existing ones.

Just my 1 cent...

[nursers]

Would definitely be happy to pay a subscription and will sign up for Patreon (finally). As you know Dave, I totally sympathise with the conundrum of growth / financial viability.

 

You raise a good point about forum members not necessarily seeing a priority in promoting MPN - I can even get my fellow forumites to promote their own music on the streaming services as per the links in my sig, I've played every song on each playlist more than 210 times now, but I can tell you from the Spotify and Apple Music stats*, pretty much no-one else is regularly playing them and there's a whole 22 people who have liked the playlist. I'm not bitter about it (really I'm not ) but it's a common inertia in any community like these.

 

Off to sign up.

 

 

* I have no way of directly knowing how many songs on the MPN playlists are listened to, but I can know indirectly. I have two of my own songs on there that I can see stats for, and there's no traffic coming from those playlists. Now it could be because my two songs suck and are actively skipped everytime someone plays the playlist, but I think there's more to it than that

[Floyd Tatum]

8 hours ago, Floyd Tatum said:

Can you give us a sense of what number of patreon donations (and at what $ amount) you would need?   Ballpark.  If you can.

 

On second thought, that question is too much prying into your business.   Maybe a vote thingy?   Is it still possible to set up a vote here?  If it is, I'll take crack at it.   Something like:  Are you willing to contribute $5 / yr?   $10/yr 

 

Maybe the results of that vote would gauge the interest in donating, or maybe what people say they would donate and what they actually donate are two different amounts (I suspect there would be some of that - I wonder if there's a name for that phenomenon.

 

[analogman1]

Count me IN for a monthly subscription.

 

With everything I pay for every month, this site and all of my fellow forumites are the MOST valuable source of information above everything else I pay for!

 

I'd pay at a moment's notice!  

[Polychrest]

Maybe the Guardian model has a solution for us.  It’s one of the great newspapers of the English-speaking world, but unlike its peers, there’s no paywall on its website.  After registering, you can browse for free, you can contribute an amount of your choosing one time or regularly on your own schedule, or you can take out a full-cost subscription.  Full-cost subscribers get the option to view the paper ad-free.  If you choose option one or two, in addition to ads, you are gifted with regular reminders that providing all this great content costs money and your financial help would be much appreciated.  Launching three comparable options here might help raise the revenue for which Dave has made a convincing case, while keeping the front door wide open for those who can’t or don’t want to pay to learn which Hammond clone has the best key click or crosstalk emulations.

[TommyRude]

Curious what the competitors are doing to make money?  Have any of the other keyboard oriented sites found a formula to attract users, subscribers, advertisers?  If content is king, then Keyboard Corner should be on top yes?  

[o0Ampy0o]

More brainstorming...

 

My earlier auction idea you asked, "run by whom?" OK it creates too much additional work.

 

Another idea: a raffle, like a football pool or regular poker game with your buddies. The host/organizer gets a cut, the winner gets a cut and MPN gets a cut. It's for MPN so the winner's prize doesn't have to be much.

 

This is 1% the work of organizing and running an auction.

 

 

 

 

[Anderton]

7 hours ago, CyberGene said:

I don’t think forums can really grow these days. Younger folks are on social networks and video sharing platforms. Forums are mostly for the older generations and some forums are still around to serve the existing members but you can’t really hope to grow them. 

 

Yes and no. Forums used to combine social media ("hey, howya doing?") with support ("I can't get my interface to work, can anyone help?"). Social media like Facebook is about quick hits and fast consumption. Where social media falls down is support, and serving as a database of knowledge. Support-oriented forums like Line 6's are doing just fine.

 

Forums aren't inherently for a particular demographic, they just need to change with the times. If you think about it, people use Facebook very much like a variation on a forum. It's like movies didn't go away when TV happened. There's a pie, and different things take up different amounts of the pie. The slices get smaller, but it's still pie.

 

My biggest regret about MPN is that I believe there's a model that hasn't been tried yet for a forum-based website, but we've never been able to implement it. I got partway there with Harmony Central, and I was pretty sure it would happen because the revenue tripled during my tenure so the resources were growing. But then Guitar Center took over. HC went downhill fast, I left, and that pretty much killed any chance of fulfilling that particular dream.

 

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, Polychrest said:

Maybe the Guardian model has a solution for us.

 

The Guardian has an average of 1,027,000 readers per issue. If we had that many people checking into MPN, we'd be covered!

[zephonic]

This morning there were 8 people on the Patreon. The activity in this thread has increased that to 10.

 

My impression is we have enough active forumites to drive that number up significantly. If you can afford to spend $5/month, please do so. It may not help generating more traffic, but I figure at least it’s a start, no?

 

 

 

[Lindaru]

You might want to check the number of patrons again.

😁

I will say this.  I do not like ads and do not wish to remove my ad blocker.  I would white ilst this site if it did not have splashy intrusive non-related ads on it if you go that way.

I like the idea of raffles and auctions.  I think that would be one positive way to bring more members in.

As for sharing the links on social media to here, I only use Facebook for Messenger.  I quit my Twitter last November.  I never had Instagram.  I have You Tube, WeVidi (I was one of the founders of that alternative video site) and an A.I. forum I am a beta tester and moderator on.  If I knew any other keyboard players, I would share the link via message or E-Mail.

Just thought I would chime in.
 

[jazzpiano88]

9 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

It is sounding like there needs to be an "owner" that takes on the site who runs it as he/she sees fit.

 

Piano World and VI Control are a couple examples I know of.   Mike Verta established Redbanned.com and I believe he does it without a huge outlay although it has much less bandwidth.

 

I only said the above because I got the impression from your original post that some companies that own the site and that they are starting to complain to you about lack of compensation, and therefore you are asking us for help.

 

 But reading your responses more carefully it looks like you own the site?  Or do you just own the keyboard corner portion?  Who owns MPN?   I remember a few years ago KC was shut down but not sure who recovered it and how.  
 

If you do own the site, how much money do you need?  

[DeltaJockey]

I wonder if you could just have an entry ad when you click on the site, which everyone has to click in order to enter. That way, every member clicks on the ad like a doorway entrance. Then maybe you could just have a pop up ad at "very long" intervals for those that don't ever leave the site for days on end, so when they sit down at the computer again, they just have to "enter" the ad doorway and the rest is business as usual. That way once you're in, you're not confronted with anymore ads, and it solves the problem of the unpredictability of people clicking on ads if they were amongst the content, because you'd get every member having to click the ad to enter.

 

just my two cents worth 😀

[Joe Muscara]

3 hours ago, JazzPiano88 said:

 

I only said the above because I got the impression from your original post that some companies that own the site and that they are starting to complain to you about lack of compensation, and therefore you are asking us for help.

 

 But reading your responses more carefully it looks like you own the site?  Or do you just own the keyboard corner portion?  Who owns MPN?   I remember a few years ago KC was shut down but not sure who recovered it and how.  
 

If you do own the site, how much money do you need?  

Yeah, dB owns the site through an LLC, as he posted about 12 hours ago, and he has explained earlier in the thread about the kinds of things he believes he/MPN needs in order to grow the site, which require money. It's not a specific number of "hosting costs this much, having an admin to run the site costs this much, etc." Check out his posts in this thread for better details.

 

Although we've managed to deal with them pretty well, it does strike me that a subscription would be useful for stopping spammers. I can't imagine someone paying to spam us. OTOH, if someone joined and was a total $#!^#3@& (shithead), do we have to give them their money back?  Both are minor considerations but thoughts that I had reading this thread.

 

Social media is designed to keep you there, the dopamine hit and everything. That's why when someone tries to share a thread from here on there, it gets discussed there instead. Even worse, people might not even come here to read the post/thread, they'll just comment there on what they think the post/thread is about. (I keep thinking the phrase I'm looking for is "barrier to entry" but I'm sure there's another one, but the point is that it's easier for people to stay on a platform than go look at another one especially if they've never been here before.)

 

I have lots of friends on social media who are keyboard players, and aside from the ones I met through KC, none of them have ever been here to my knowledge and the platform they're on is enough for them. I also have some friends from KC who rarely if ever come here anymore but are active on some social media platform. I can't blame them. Time online can be a real time suck.

 

Ads don't bother me if they're relevant and not annoying (you know the ones).

 

I find it interesting that some of you say things about Patreon vs. subscription since they're pretty similar. I think some have said they'd do a subscription but not or haven't done Patreon. If you're okay with a subscription you could do Patreon in the meantime. Patreon has been "I need to figure out what I want to contribute to KC/MPN" for a while. I'm currently doing three. One is for a podcast that I really enjoy but I'm not crazy about the guy's music so I support him with that instead, another is for another podcast that has been life-changing for me and doesn't run ads, and the third is for a band that I love (and found out about from KC). In that case, they have levels that give you different access to stuff. It's really a fan club. I don't know if there are possible things MPN could do like that, or of we're better off sticking with the current, "if you love MPN, please consider contributing."

 

[BTW, whenever someone says, "for the price of a cup of coffee a month, you can help us", I'm useless because I still think that's 25 cents.   ]

 

That first podcast has an interesting pitch. He does tell you about the Patreon, but then he also suggests things like telling a friend about the podcast, and leaving a rating where you get a podcast. That last one doesn't help here, but telling friends about KC or MPN would.

 

Of course, Dave has posted this in KC, the biggest group here, but I wonder how the regulars in other topic areas feel. 

[DeltaJockey]

I went to look at considering the Patreon support, but with my exchange rate it is $101/month or 1,212.00/ year! I don't think I could pay a subscription that's over $1,000 per year for anything. That  gets me into annual health insurance premium territory. Is that the kind of figure that is expected for a subscription, or am I misunderstanding something? yikes!

[Adan]

I think of crowdfunding as applying when someone says "here's my proposed project, here's why it's valuable to you, and here's why you should trust me to follow through."  As much as I believe in the value of this forum, a forum is a different concept.  If I fund it voluntarily, then I start thinking about, for instance, why I'm paying to enable someone (who for all I know probably didn't contribute) to maintain an "OT: trivia" thread, and to be frank that would start to annoy me deeply, because I never had intent of funding that person's (who I don't know from Adam) desire to talk trivia.

 

I'd gladly pay a subscription, because then everyone on here has made the same investment in the integrity of the site, and if the trivia lovers drop out, that's fine with me.  But I understand that may not be viable from the business end.

 

I will keep coming to the forum even if there are ads, as long as it doesn't get totally out of hand.  Facebook has become a cesspool of stuff I don't want to see, and no amount of my efforts to "opt out" of specific content seems to change that.  But I don't think MPN would go from what it is now to such an extreme.

[Markay]

Dave, I have played a fremium game for free for 10 years now. Not given them a cent in all that time. But I do click on the ads, sourced from Google no doubt,  which gives some, but not much of in game rewards, 5 each day, The ads are often irrelevant, annoying or simply a rip off, but that is the price I pay to not give them any money.

 

I would happly click on 5 totally irrelevant online gambling ads each time I log in here in here to keep the forum alive. 5 minutes of my leisure time per day with volume at zero is not a biggie.

[Red Ranger]

If you did go with a subscription model, maybe one way to bring in new users would be to include a trial subscription with the purchase of a new piece of gear at one of the supportive companies. (I don't know if Casio/Sweetwater/Kraft would go for something like that, but at least it wouldn't cost them anything & would provide a benefit to their customers). Just a thought. 

 

 

[Dave Bryce]

3 hours ago, DeltaJockey said:

I went to look at considering the Patreon support, but with my exchange rate it is $101/month or 1,212.00/ year! I don't think I could pay a subscription that's over $1,000 per year for anything. That  gets me into annual health insurance premium territory. Is that the kind of figure that is expected for a subscription, or am I misunderstanding something? yikes!

You are most definitely misunderstanding something.

The figure you see at the top of the Patreon page (currently $67/month) is not what you’re being asked to pay - that’s the total amount currently being contributed to Patreon every month combined.  You are free to choose how much you want to contribute.  It can be $1 a month, or $5, or $10 - whatever you feel is comfortable and reasonable.  Any amount is acceptable.

 

 

3 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

I find it interesting that some of you say things about Patreon vs. subscription since they're pretty similar. I think some have said they'd do a subscription but not or haven't done Patreon. If you're okay with a subscription you could do Patreon in the meantime. Patreon has been "I need to figure out what I want to contribute to KC/MPN" for a while.

 

 

The Patreon thing is a WAY more desirable solution for me, for sure.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, not everyone has the same experience at MPN or values it the same, and I believe people should be free to pay what they want/what they feel this experience is worth.  

 

Also, besides allowing people to decide how much they want to pay, it’s effortless and essentially transparent for me/MPN to manage Patreon.  For me to implement the subscription solution, here’s (the short version of) the things that need to happen first:

 

• We’d need to figure out an amount that’s reasonable for everybody.  Right there, I’m not a fan.  As I just mentioned, I don’t think that number should be the same for everyone who comes here…and I’d prefer to avoid making the decision about what that amount should be, then having to rationalize/defend it.

• I have to configure that amount for different countries, and keep an eye on that constantly as exchange rates fluctuate. 😳

• I have to involve a company called Stripe, who are responsible for handling and processing payments on the Invision platform.  They have several hoops that need to be jumped through, of course.

• I have to create a new membership category (Premium Member?), then figure out how to tell the Invision platform who has paid and how to switch them to that new category automatically…or, failing that, I have to manage that manually.  😬

* We have to figure out some way to differentiate the Premium members from the rest in terms of their MPN experience.  I’m not a fan of that, either.  That’d be a bunch of work to figure out and then implement.

* I have to sell this concept to everyone who is already a member here, including (as recently mentioned above) the non-KC folks who are not participating in this discussion yet.

• I have to figure out and implement some sort of pitch for potential new members that doesn’t change their mind about joining.

 

There’s more, but you get the idea.

 

I thought - and still think - the (on-topic, industry-related, no Google AdSense) advertising thing, like GearSlu….umm, I mean GearSPACE and KVR do is the way to go, but having spent a couple of years trying to find and pitch advertisers (and then keep enough of them per month) takes more effort than you might think, and is essentially a full-time job…or at the very least, a part-time one.  I’ve tried to find someone to do that (and be paid for it, of course!) but I’ve been unsuccessful.  If any of you guys want to take a crack at that, I’d be delighted to have a conversation about how we can make it work.

 

As Craig alludes above, we’ve also spent a bunch of time trying to implement “Pro Reviews” thing that was so successful for HC, where we get paid by manufacturers to do the things we’re doing in the GearLab now…but, like selling the music-related ads, that takes a decent amount of time to manage.  It was way successful for HC, as Craig can attest; but, absent a dedicated manager, it’s not coming together the way we had hoped.  As with the ads, I’d be delighted to pay someone to help with that. 😎

 

Hopefully, that clarifies the situation a bit more.  Happy to continue to try to answer as many questions as I can.

 

I really appreciate y’all taking the time to help figure this out.  I absolutely love MPN, and want it to continue to exist and grow for as long as possible.  I have no doubt that many of you do as well. 

 

dB

 

 

 

 

 

[CyberGene]

Here’s my two cents, although I already said pretty much the same earlier. 
 

A forum is as an obsolete thing and you can’t grow it anymore. You’ll have to deal with that realization. I’d be happy to be proven wrong though. 
 

With the above in mind you should stick to the bare minimum and just “keep the lights on” and downsize/cut everything else. The cheapest hosting tiers are good enough for maybe 100 simultaneous users posting at the same time or even more and I think this forum is much below that number.

 

Forums are made by their members, and not for their members. Or in other words, we all contribute to the quality of the content, we help each other and we shouldn’t be expected to pay for that. There are support forums of companies selling services and products and they can charge you for the staff members helping you but this is not the case here. Which is why any money paid by members should be entirely voluntary and in the way of donations.

 

Ads are OK, but just consider for a moment that I, for one, live in Europe. Is an American ad relevant to me and vice versa?

 

If you go with subscriptions are you going to limit only the posting abilities of non-paying members? Because if you also limit their browsing you will basically block Google and other search engines from crawling and indexing the forum which will certainly kill the forum in no time.

 

Once again, I believe this forum should stay free for anybody, also ad free and downsized to the bare minimum of just providing a simple forum functionality for its members. Maybe no upload space, no real-time updates and all these things that I know for sure require hardware resources. I just don’t think there’s profit in forums nowadays, so once you’re fine with that realization you would basically see the needed steps yourself. I know this sounds a bit pessimistic but stop for a moment and think about all of it. I’m just trying to be realistic actually. 

[MathOfInsects]

Reading between the lines, I think what you're asking might really be if maybe someone else might be the Db of the forum for a while or even permanently. Does that sound right?

If so, maybe it's worth putting the call out for admin/tech, with the caveat that it might be a volunteer position basically forever, and see who bites. That might be easier to find than reliable sources of ongoing funding, particularly if you've already tried most of the options mentioned here.

Short of that, instead of (or in addition to) Patreon, what if there was a single "Help us keep the lights on" fundraising effort with a concrete target to aim for--say, $4000. That's five years of the current Patreon load. I think people would respond to the crucial need for a specific amount of funding much more quickly and reliably than the general ask to top off the Patreon when and if they feel like it. 

Finally, I know it's a repeated question, but if you or someone could take some time and break down what the financial needs specifically are and which are live-saving measures and which are "nice to haves," that might prompt some contributions as well. At the most basic level, it would seem that a hosting plan with the bandwidth to handle the boards would be baseline. Then it might be good to chip away at this stuff item by item from there so at the very least we know we'll keep the doors open if it comes to it. 

A final-final consideration is that we might just need to mentally reconfigure what "MPN" is. It's not really a media cooperative or customer-facing entity any more, it's essentially just this set of discussion boards. Changing how we conceive of it might take some pressure off those "nice to haves" and leave us in the small relatively self-sustaining universe of these boards. 

[elif]

Take a look at the Talkbass forum subscription model. It is successful but has many more users than MPN.

• Anyone can sign up and post.
• Supporting level (paying) members main advantage is that they can list gear in the classifieds.
• Gold level members also see no ads.
• Commercial users pay more and must disclose a commercial affiliation.  This is indicated by a line in their posting avatar.