Consistently, and I'm sure you have the data, the DBD blogs have the most user exchange and participation. They often dwarf the interaction on the sports blog. The sports blogs consistently have the same posters, which is a small number of users.
Ergo, it would seem to me that the optimal business model for WFC would be to charge for the DBD content. That is where your traffic and user participation ACTUALLY is. Do you plan to charge for DBD content? If not, can you provide an explanation?
Rather than locking the most active or engaging parts of the site behind a paywall, the idea is more focused on making a paywall for some of the content that takes more time and effort to put together (recruiting, scouting, PFF data analysis, additional play breakdowns).
If we were interested in generating revenue for the sake of generating revenue, the former might make more sense. However, the revenue stream is designed to offset the costs enabling new, in-depth content (PFF subscription, KenPom subscription, etc.).
As an additional reason why it would be impossible to charge for the DBD, that's far from anything exclusive to us. It can be recreated at other sites for free (including the husk of CGB, where the commenting system to better suited for it), so I bet the day we charge for the DBD would be the day the DBD dies on this site.
Yah, I don't think anyone suggested that DBD be charged independently or exclusively. Perhaps one could have considered a "go fund me" type of fund raiser to cover costs per annum for WFC??
"Ergo, it would seem to me that the optimal business model for WFC would be to charge for the DBD content. ... Do you plan to charge for DBD content?"
"Yah, I don't think anyone suggested that DBD be charged independently or exclusively."
Wait, what?
I agree that no one is talking about charging for the DBD. I was, however, providing a counterpoint to your suggestion about "charg[ing] for DBD content".
I personally avoid the DBD cause it’s not something I’m interested in. If that was a significant part of what I’d be paying for in premium, I would not subscribe. But that’s not what I’m hearing will be a part of premium. I’d be much more interested in football and basketball forums. I think the format that I see on other sites of user generated topics works well. There’s something about discussion in the comments section of an article that’s not as appealing.
But you & I will be paying for it (DBD) if we are a subscribers. It cost money to run a website as they noted in the article. So like you I'm not sure I want my $$ supporting the DBD portion.
Yeah. I appreciate this site and I think I’ll be a subscriber. These guys put in a lot of effort into something that brings me joy. I’m sure the contributors have a lot to work out. Maybe football, basketball forums and the DBD would be better in the free area to generate interest and community. I find the question of what to make free and paid interesting. Will more free content lead to more subscribers or will more premium content entice more? It might take some trial and error to find the sweet spot (and input of people more knowledgable about web commerce than I). I’m excited.
I like the producers of content and the site as well. Issue at hand is the additional material is readily available elsewhere BUT not by these contributors which, in my mind, is the value add. The blue background is already an improvement, LOL.
Now if I could pay through PayPal I would already be signed up. But having just had my CC compromised, not sure I wanna chance an "unknown". Perhaps they will provide additional payment options.
I think they are using stripe. I recently made 2 purchases from Switzerland. First time I used paypal and it got flagged and they put a hold on my debit card. Second time I used stripe and had no issues. Admittedly though T-mobile just had a major data breach where names, addresses, and SSN of users were hacked (Thanks T-mobile!)
I think that if our goal at W4C was to make the most money possible, charging for the DBD might make sense. But seeing as how our goal is to make money to support the online community we've built, our choices are more constrained, and we only want to pursue revenue opportunities that are not detrimental to our primary goal of fostering community.
Yes, the average DBD does have far more comments than the sports blog articles. However, the average sports article has nearly an order of magnitude more readers than the average DBD. The vast majority of the comments here are based upon a false premise.
It’s due to the fact that those who post in DBD (myself included) don’t actually know how to read. We click on the DBD picture and then just type away. It’s a black hole of terrible and uninformed opinions.
We did consider an ad-driven model, especially as we're quite familiar with such from our days on SBNation.
For me, the choice between ad-driven and a subscription-driven journalism model is around the incentives it places before the writers and editors. With ads, we are incentivized to produce as many clicks as possible, which means as much content as possible, and getting clicks through to that content with clever headlines and SEO. At SBNation, this sometimes meant writing the sort of content that we knew would drive traffic (especially off-site from traffic), but that wasn't all that deep or interesting.
In contrast, a subscriber-driven model incentives us to produce consistent, high-quality content, the sort that drives reader loyalty and willingness to pay for. We may not produce quite as much content in this case, but I think that with subscriptions, our incentives align a lot closer to what our most valuable readers want, as well as what our writers want, and I think that's a good thing.
On another platform that's not Substack, I can see us supplementing revenue with ads in the future, but I don't think I ever want ad revenue to be so important to W4C that is starts to influence editorial decisions.
I’m sure the answer is no and that Uve already considered this, but is there any opportunity to transition back to the SB Nation platform? Whoever took THAT over has clearly abandoned the Cal site w the last post being from June…..uh, it’s football season people! I thot I just saw a news article about a court case re: how Uber/Lyft drivers were considered in employment; any chance that related to the issue that motivated the transition over here? I love this site and your content, but that platform was super user friendly. Just a thot, my friends.
Right, but I’m asking if there’s any chance for WFC staff to take back that platform given potential (I did not read the article as I don’t live in California) change in the effects O’s that legislation. But maybe WFC staff prefers THIS platform, for all I know. But I see Cal Golden Blogs as a vacant house that could be re-occupied by the former tenants.
Much as I love the SBN tech platform (and I was the biggest proponent of moving there from our original independent site back in 2008), SBN/Vox corporate has really showed how little they value their contributors/understand their own brand. I don't think there would be much support for moving back even if they came begging.
And yeah, CGB being a ghost town is disappointing, but also somewhat vindicating for the W4C staff.
Also, sbnation is trying to shift to a new commenting platform. They switched the NFL blogs (and perhaps others) over to the new commenting platform and I think the feedback was negative. I don't know if they plan on switching every blog over to it or not. I know that TBLA has not switched over. Perhaps they saw commenting decrease in the NFL blogs and they've decided not to switch over.
Could be. I'm not familiar with the new platform (I don't recall the last time I was on an SBNation site, tbh), but new platform rollouts often get a pretty negative reception from enfranchised consumers. My guess is that they're making tweaks to respond to feedback before they roll out further -- it's quite rare to see revamps like this completely scrapped.
Yeah maybe they're taking the criticism and updating the new commenting platform. I think people on TBLA have said they'd go to a different blog if the new platform were adopted as is. It's clunky and there is no Z key.
Actually Vox is attempting to go public via a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company). The advantage to a SPAC is that you don't have to file an S-1 to the SEC disclosing certain items around a business. With a SPAC there is little to no SEC scrutiny. I don't know if SBNation/Vox contributors own any equity in the company but it would have been nice if you did.
None of the CGB crew were actual employees of Vox, so no, no equity there. I don't think Vox offered full-time employment to anyone who wasn't managing a large group of blogs, and even then, I have no idea if they were granted equity. (even if they were, I doubt it was much)
So, the recent court case you're referencing was an overturning of Prop 22, which exempted companies like Uber and Lyft from AB5. So, AB5, however misguided, is still on the books.
My reaction is that I understand. It's remarkable there is free content without a flood of ads. I'm not sure if I will pay to join, but I can't fault the authors for going this route. More than anything we need a robust online forum for Cal fans that has a low bar for entry. I've never joined any of the paid sites, though I know many here belong to them. Something about my cal fandom has prevented me from paying money to read about it, though I watch all the youtube videos on Cal Athletics and consume Cal news like water. It's some firewall in my limits of how crazy I can be. But this group has certainly earned my respect and appreciation, and maybe I will move the goal posts here soon.
All the current content that you enjoy will continue to be free. That's not changing - it's just that there will be additional content behind a paywall.
I'll support this. I'm looking forward to the podcast. I wonder if Nam will keep doing his podcast on Rivals since he's bringing his talents over here and Trace Travers is now a... rival.
Trace and I haven't had any conversations about things changing, and we're all close no matter which website we work for, so I think the plan is for me to continue to split duties. Here, I'm just doing my final season as a writer without any expectations to be paid and what not.
Final season? I haven't read much of your work these past few years since as I said above I'm cheap and haven't paid for Cal content no matter how great it is. But I've met you at games and have held the highest regard for your writing and efforts for these past many, many years. My gosh, when did I start reading your work? Must have been 10 years ago or more. Back in the first version of Cal Blogs? Whatever you do Nam, I wish you well, and will always consider you a true Golden Bear. Thank you.
Aug 30, 2021Liked by Rob Hwang, Rick Chen, Piotr Le
Happy to support you all bringing high (and even higher) quality content! :werenotworthy:
As for what the income could be used for, I would love to see efforts to diversify the writing community. Perhaps a summer/semester writing internship for underrepresented folks (including, uh, women?).
The Cal community is built on diversity, and supporting new voices in the athletics blogosphere would only strengthen our community.
Well, the one demographic that we do target (basically all our writers come from this demo) is our current readership. Perhaps if our writing can be our key to expanding this demo.
I mean I'm studying Journalism at Santa Clara and have experience with high school and now college sports writing. Like Kevin said, an internship over the summer would be great, and shed a light on those in less fortunate positions (like me thrown on a random town on the Peninsula). Erik and Leland, if you both open to it and I prove myself at the start of the summer maybe we can get something done on that front.
Love the idea. Defn will add to the doc of things we want to do. And hopefully we’re able to get there. Doors always open for more voices and diversity.
I'd love to see this community return to its former CGB glory. It was by far the best college blog on SB Nation. It was awesome when we played blueblood teams with much larger fanbases like Texas or Ohio State and so many of their fans were on our live blog because the activity dwarfed theirs. We'd have it broken up into pregame, halftime and 4 quarters with ~1,000 comments on each one while the Longhorn blog would have one post with a few hundred comments. Maybe I'm exaggerating the numbers but that's how I remember it.
Would love to subscribe, but I've become increasingly more paranoid about financial security online so I have a few questions: Is this subscription a Substack thing or did you custom create it and if so who's the payment processor?
Also out of curiosity have you considered Patreon?
Anyway looking forward to the detailed posts and breakdowns. Even if I don't comment much anymore, I still read all the articles top to bottom!
The subscription is a Substack thing -- it's processed through Stripe.
I don't think we ever seriously considered Patreon at this juncture -- the Substack platform is made for exactly this use case, so if we were going to give direct monetization a go, this was by far the lowest-effort way to manage it. In particular, it makes it easy for us to segment out free vs. paid content without having to do a lot of extra work.
Did I misread what was said? Could have sworn that it was stated that everything would be free the first two weeks and after that time frame the paywall would go into place for the appropriate stuff. However, there is already an article today that is behind said paywall.
Very nice website about a failed team. Nevada has beat you all 3 in a row. I'm sure you can find a spot in the Big Sky conference. That will never happen because, or course, PAC 12 entitlement which means nothing to any one but you all.
I agree with GB49--I like a blue and gold theme as much as anybody, but white letters on blue background is harder for me to read.
The big question: will Twist's Men's Fashion Blog posts re-appear in the Premium Tier?
UNSUBSCRIBE
One can only dream....the return of Twist, in any incarnation, would be worth the price of admission.
He's pretty active on Twitter, if you need to continue to hear about the price of subway sandwiches. (@twistnhook)
How much would you pay for Rob’s weekly cal equipment column? Hahaha
Consistently, and I'm sure you have the data, the DBD blogs have the most user exchange and participation. They often dwarf the interaction on the sports blog. The sports blogs consistently have the same posters, which is a small number of users.
Ergo, it would seem to me that the optimal business model for WFC would be to charge for the DBD content. That is where your traffic and user participation ACTUALLY is. Do you plan to charge for DBD content? If not, can you provide an explanation?
Regards,
Case in point, currently at 4:34 a.m. PST, this blog has 2 posts, today's DBD blog already has 15!!
Rather than locking the most active or engaging parts of the site behind a paywall, the idea is more focused on making a paywall for some of the content that takes more time and effort to put together (recruiting, scouting, PFF data analysis, additional play breakdowns).
If we were interested in generating revenue for the sake of generating revenue, the former might make more sense. However, the revenue stream is designed to offset the costs enabling new, in-depth content (PFF subscription, KenPom subscription, etc.).
Seems reasonable. Perhaps there is a middle ground somewhere. No reason not to monetize from your most active user base as well as adding new content.
Ultimately, our goal is to provide roughly the same level of free stuff we always have, which includes the DBD
As an additional reason why it would be impossible to charge for the DBD, that's far from anything exclusive to us. It can be recreated at other sites for free (including the husk of CGB, where the commenting system to better suited for it), so I bet the day we charge for the DBD would be the day the DBD dies on this site.
well, there goes my plan for DBD Premium, with exclusive GIF-making tools!
As long as you add value, you can justify charging for it.
Wait...why have I been paying Twist for DBD premium?!?!
Those scoop necks don't buy themselves.
Swim lessons are not cheap!
Yah, I don't think anyone suggested that DBD be charged independently or exclusively. Perhaps one could have considered a "go fund me" type of fund raiser to cover costs per annum for WFC??
"Ergo, it would seem to me that the optimal business model for WFC would be to charge for the DBD content. ... Do you plan to charge for DBD content?"
"Yah, I don't think anyone suggested that DBD be charged independently or exclusively."
Wait, what?
I agree that no one is talking about charging for the DBD. I was, however, providing a counterpoint to your suggestion about "charg[ing] for DBD content".
Nothing incongruous in what I posted.
I personally avoid the DBD cause it’s not something I’m interested in. If that was a significant part of what I’d be paying for in premium, I would not subscribe. But that’s not what I’m hearing will be a part of premium. I’d be much more interested in football and basketball forums. I think the format that I see on other sites of user generated topics works well. There’s something about discussion in the comments section of an article that’s not as appealing.
But you & I will be paying for it (DBD) if we are a subscribers. It cost money to run a website as they noted in the article. So like you I'm not sure I want my $$ supporting the DBD portion.
Yeah. I appreciate this site and I think I’ll be a subscriber. These guys put in a lot of effort into something that brings me joy. I’m sure the contributors have a lot to work out. Maybe football, basketball forums and the DBD would be better in the free area to generate interest and community. I find the question of what to make free and paid interesting. Will more free content lead to more subscribers or will more premium content entice more? It might take some trial and error to find the sweet spot (and input of people more knowledgable about web commerce than I). I’m excited.
I like the producers of content and the site as well. Issue at hand is the additional material is readily available elsewhere BUT not by these contributors which, in my mind, is the value add. The blue background is already an improvement, LOL.
Now if I could pay through PayPal I would already be signed up. But having just had my CC compromised, not sure I wanna chance an "unknown". Perhaps they will provide additional payment options.
I think they are using stripe. I recently made 2 purchases from Switzerland. First time I used paypal and it got flagged and they put a hold on my debit card. Second time I used stripe and had no issues. Admittedly though T-mobile just had a major data breach where names, addresses, and SSN of users were hacked (Thanks T-mobile!)
I think that if our goal at W4C was to make the most money possible, charging for the DBD might make sense. But seeing as how our goal is to make money to support the online community we've built, our choices are more constrained, and we only want to pursue revenue opportunities that are not detrimental to our primary goal of fostering community.
Yes, the average DBD does have far more comments than the sports blog articles. However, the average sports article has nearly an order of magnitude more readers than the average DBD. The vast majority of the comments here are based upon a false premise.
It’s due to the fact that those who post in DBD (myself included) don’t actually know how to read. We click on the DBD picture and then just type away. It’s a black hole of terrible and uninformed opinions.
Be careful, the DBD is like the hotel California. Once you check in, you can never leave.
hmmm, sounds like some value there. Who would've thought that...
Monetization is always a good thing. Another possibility is an ad-supported model, but clearly you guys decided on the subscription model instead.
We did consider an ad-driven model, especially as we're quite familiar with such from our days on SBNation.
For me, the choice between ad-driven and a subscription-driven journalism model is around the incentives it places before the writers and editors. With ads, we are incentivized to produce as many clicks as possible, which means as much content as possible, and getting clicks through to that content with clever headlines and SEO. At SBNation, this sometimes meant writing the sort of content that we knew would drive traffic (especially off-site from traffic), but that wasn't all that deep or interesting.
In contrast, a subscriber-driven model incentives us to produce consistent, high-quality content, the sort that drives reader loyalty and willingness to pay for. We may not produce quite as much content in this case, but I think that with subscriptions, our incentives align a lot closer to what our most valuable readers want, as well as what our writers want, and I think that's a good thing.
On another platform that's not Substack, I can see us supplementing revenue with ads in the future, but I don't think I ever want ad revenue to be so important to W4C that is starts to influence editorial decisions.
I’m sure the answer is no and that Uve already considered this, but is there any opportunity to transition back to the SB Nation platform? Whoever took THAT over has clearly abandoned the Cal site w the last post being from June…..uh, it’s football season people! I thot I just saw a news article about a court case re: how Uber/Lyft drivers were considered in employment; any chance that related to the issue that motivated the transition over here? I love this site and your content, but that platform was super user friendly. Just a thot, my friends.
Yes, AB5 initiated the upheaval.. There was abundant chat and consternation about it on CGB at the time. https://www.californiagoldenblogs.com/2019/12/17/21025710/california-golden-blogs-sbnation-vox-california-independent-contractor-assembly-bill-ab5
Right, but I’m asking if there’s any chance for WFC staff to take back that platform given potential (I did not read the article as I don’t live in California) change in the effects O’s that legislation. But maybe WFC staff prefers THIS platform, for all I know. But I see Cal Golden Blogs as a vacant house that could be re-occupied by the former tenants.
Much as I love the SBN tech platform (and I was the biggest proponent of moving there from our original independent site back in 2008), SBN/Vox corporate has really showed how little they value their contributors/understand their own brand. I don't think there would be much support for moving back even if they came begging.
And yeah, CGB being a ghost town is disappointing, but also somewhat vindicating for the W4C staff.
Also, sbnation is trying to shift to a new commenting platform. They switched the NFL blogs (and perhaps others) over to the new commenting platform and I think the feedback was negative. I don't know if they plan on switching every blog over to it or not. I know that TBLA has not switched over. Perhaps they saw commenting decrease in the NFL blogs and they've decided not to switch over.
Could be. I'm not familiar with the new platform (I don't recall the last time I was on an SBNation site, tbh), but new platform rollouts often get a pretty negative reception from enfranchised consumers. My guess is that they're making tweaks to respond to feedback before they roll out further -- it's quite rare to see revamps like this completely scrapped.
Yeah maybe they're taking the criticism and updating the new commenting platform. I think people on TBLA have said they'd go to a different blog if the new platform were adopted as is. It's clunky and there is no Z key.
Actually Vox is attempting to go public via a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company). The advantage to a SPAC is that you don't have to file an S-1 to the SEC disclosing certain items around a business. With a SPAC there is little to no SEC scrutiny. I don't know if SBNation/Vox contributors own any equity in the company but it would have been nice if you did.
None of the CGB crew were actual employees of Vox, so no, no equity there. I don't think Vox offered full-time employment to anyone who wasn't managing a large group of blogs, and even then, I have no idea if they were granted equity. (even if they were, I doubt it was much)
(Avi was, but he also ran Pacific Takes)
So, the recent court case you're referencing was an overturning of Prop 22, which exempted companies like Uber and Lyft from AB5. So, AB5, however misguided, is still on the books.
Got it; thanks.
I just subscribed! Keep up the goo……the GREAT work!!!!!
I'm here for it all, but especially the X's and O's breakdowns!
My reaction is that I understand. It's remarkable there is free content without a flood of ads. I'm not sure if I will pay to join, but I can't fault the authors for going this route. More than anything we need a robust online forum for Cal fans that has a low bar for entry. I've never joined any of the paid sites, though I know many here belong to them. Something about my cal fandom has prevented me from paying money to read about it, though I watch all the youtube videos on Cal Athletics and consume Cal news like water. It's some firewall in my limits of how crazy I can be. But this group has certainly earned my respect and appreciation, and maybe I will move the goal posts here soon.
All the current content that you enjoy will continue to be free. That's not changing - it's just that there will be additional content behind a paywall.
I'll support this. I'm looking forward to the podcast. I wonder if Nam will keep doing his podcast on Rivals since he's bringing his talents over here and Trace Travers is now a... rival.
Trace and I haven't had any conversations about things changing, and we're all close no matter which website we work for, so I think the plan is for me to continue to split duties. Here, I'm just doing my final season as a writer without any expectations to be paid and what not.
Final season? I haven't read much of your work these past few years since as I said above I'm cheap and haven't paid for Cal content no matter how great it is. But I've met you at games and have held the highest regard for your writing and efforts for these past many, many years. My gosh, when did I start reading your work? Must have been 10 years ago or more. Back in the first version of Cal Blogs? Whatever you do Nam, I wish you well, and will always consider you a true Golden Bear. Thank you.
Happy to support you all bringing high (and even higher) quality content! :werenotworthy:
As for what the income could be used for, I would love to see efforts to diversify the writing community. Perhaps a summer/semester writing internship for underrepresented folks (including, uh, women?).
The Cal community is built on diversity, and supporting new voices in the athletics blogosphere would only strengthen our community.
We're happy to take on any interested applicants. I can only think of one female applicant, whom we did take onto the team back in the CGB days.
When we get so few applicants—and even fewer who actually start on board as active contributors—it's impossibly difficult to target any demographic.
Well, the one demographic that we do target (basically all our writers come from this demo) is our current readership. Perhaps if our writing can be our key to expanding this demo.
I mean I'm studying Journalism at Santa Clara and have experience with high school and now college sports writing. Like Kevin said, an internship over the summer would be great, and shed a light on those in less fortunate positions (like me thrown on a random town on the Peninsula). Erik and Leland, if you both open to it and I prove myself at the start of the summer maybe we can get something done on that front.
Now I see Ur conflict of interest re: the soccer game! Cheers!
Love the idea. Defn will add to the doc of things we want to do. And hopefully we’re able to get there. Doors always open for more voices and diversity.
I'd love to see this community return to its former CGB glory. It was by far the best college blog on SB Nation. It was awesome when we played blueblood teams with much larger fanbases like Texas or Ohio State and so many of their fans were on our live blog because the activity dwarfed theirs. We'd have it broken up into pregame, halftime and 4 quarters with ~1,000 comments on each one while the Longhorn blog would have one post with a few hundred comments. Maybe I'm exaggerating the numbers but that's how I remember it.
That’s the goal. And long term to have a site that is able to support a more robust and better fitting comment section for our community.
Would love to subscribe, but I've become increasingly more paranoid about financial security online so I have a few questions: Is this subscription a Substack thing or did you custom create it and if so who's the payment processor?
Also out of curiosity have you considered Patreon?
Anyway looking forward to the detailed posts and breakdowns. Even if I don't comment much anymore, I still read all the articles top to bottom!
The subscription is a Substack thing -- it's processed through Stripe.
I don't think we ever seriously considered Patreon at this juncture -- the Substack platform is made for exactly this use case, so if we were going to give direct monetization a go, this was by far the lowest-effort way to manage it. In particular, it makes it easy for us to segment out free vs. paid content without having to do a lot of extra work.
Any chance we can pay through PayPal??
Something your gonna have to email substack about. Sadly we don’t have control over payment methods
Does the merchant categorize as grocery or gas? ;p
Food for the cal soul.
Fuel for the seasons journey.
All right, thanks for the info! Subscribed!
I'm in! Hope this helps the cause. Thanks fo keeping this community together!
Same!
Can we insert pictures and gifs in comments on the new site?
That is a defn goal
sunshine pumper bear dot gif
or deflated_oski.gif
Washington_Wilcox_Licking_Lips.gif (Sorry)
heh...forgot about this classic.
Sark boat
Did I misread what was said? Could have sworn that it was stated that everything would be free the first two weeks and after that time frame the paywall would go into place for the appropriate stuff. However, there is already an article today that is behind said paywall.
I noticed that too.
We should’ve been a bit clearer. We’ve set the trial time for 14 days so if you sign up you’ll get to see all of it for 2 weeks.
In the mean time we’re working on a better solution and wording. Hope to have some resolution in the next hours
done done and done
Very nice website about a failed team. Nevada has beat you all 3 in a row. I'm sure you can find a spot in the Big Sky conference. That will never happen because, or course, PAC 12 entitlement which means nothing to any one but you all.