http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660I would definitely pay because I want to support you but I agree with posters who value printed materials over videos. I don't have time to watch a video. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment67http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment67Wed, 07 May 2008 13:01:16 GMTSome of the comments are pretty good, regarding require to enter an amount even $0 or a sponsor model, somes outlines the pros/cons of a subscription models are also valid. Myself I am leaning toward the text content as well. I am much quicker with Ctrl F rather than fast forward a video trying to pinpoint some stuff that I forgot 1 hours later... Perhaps webcast+sourcecode+text content would be a good subscription model. I also chime in with you writing a book, a couples book even! Anyway to make a long story short I believe as long as you still being Ayende you'll get plenty of support it doesn't matter what model you choose to follow. There are also other revenue for income as well like premium support/conference speakers... Whatever you choose to do please don't sell yourself short because you are too great of a person. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment66http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment66Fri, 25 Apr 2008 06:19:49 GMTPersonally, I hate paying for content ;-) Apart from that, I've just downloaded the torrents and will continue to share them (I have more or less unlimited bandwith) KR, Tom http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment65http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment65Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:20:49 GMTPersonally, I hate paying for content ;-) Apart from that, I've just downloaded the torrents and will continue to share them (I have more or less unlimited bandwith) KR, Tom http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment64http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment64Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:20:48 GMTI made a (small) donation a while back after watching one of the videos because I was so impressed with the quality and value of the content. That said, my vote is for: (1) Finding a sponsor and/or (2) Making the videos available via Inform IT's Safari site IMO, the potential drawback with a sale or subscription model is people who pay and then feel that they haven't gotten their money's worth (it's hard to believe with YOUR videos, but "people are crazier than anybody"). As busy as you are, I don't know if you want the hassle of dealing with irate customers. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment63http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment63Fri, 18 Apr 2008 16:45:32 GMTGo for it, I'd sign up for this. You had me at "Hello". http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment62http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment62Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:07:06 GMTI've found this site very helpful, and I'm not against the idea of trading money for your knowledge and experience, but I'm not sure that the videos are what I'd choose, if I got to pick. I would much rather see a release/stable version of Rhino Tools, and more fleshed out sample applications. The one that would personally interest me the most would be an MVC (monorail or asp.net MVC, don't really care which), sample web application demonstrating IoC, using things from Rhino like Unit of Work Application, repositories, domain services, validation, different ways/approaches to doing transactions and unit testing including mock objects, in memory embedded databases and generating a schema from the nhibernate model. I don't know how interested other people would be in this, or how much it would cost you to produce versus the screencasts, but the fleshed out sample and some blog posts talking about the interesting topics/design decisions that come up would be more interesting/helpful/valuable to me than the movie would be. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment61http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment61Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:53:57 GMTthis price also includes human capital, i think... http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment60http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment60Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:35:26 GMT$10k for a screencast... and you're not joking? http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment59http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment59Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:21:52 GMTAnother angle: if you seek support from community, just put "donate" link to your blog. While I guestion the value I've gained from the video series, I cannot deny HUGE amount of ideas, approaches and alternative choices I've picked up both from your blog and projects :) I'm sure many including me would use that button. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment58http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment58Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:59:38 GMTSubscriptions are good from a business perspective. The revenue is somewhat more predictable, and customer sometimes feel the values is better. (NetFlix). If you start charging, expectations will rise. I like free stuff, but I also like to eat. I just finished writing a WPF book and the advance only cover 1/3 of the time needed to write and edit. I understand the need to charge. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment57http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment57Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:53:02 GMTI'd pay provided the content was relevant and of interest to me. I've paid for a few peep code casts in the past and was happy. If paying, I'd expect that the basic technical issues (audio/video quality, etc.) were in order. You provide a ton of information via your blog and OSS contributions, so I have no problem chipping in a little every now and then for your time (which obviously is your money!) http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment56http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment56Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:02:35 GMTTo be completely honest, the educational value in those few screencasts I have viewed is less than entertainment "watch ayende work" values. For entertainment values I'd pay 5 bucks and for educational values maybe another 5. So 10 would be absolute maximum, not the lowest range. However, I doubt the feasibility of this model to return your investment. U would have to spend additional time messing with paypal yadayda. Having a sponsor logos popping up in the beginning and the end of videos could be more probable way to make u feel right and just. Jetbrains would be a good candidate to go ask for PR money. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment55http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment55Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:19:10 GMTMight take a look at learnvisualstudio.net The model is pretty good. Started at 1/2 the price it is now. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment54http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment54Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:48:35 GMTHave you considered the "ransomware" approach? Create a screencast, and put a price tag on it. Once the community donates enough to the "ransom pot", the screencast in question would be passed to public domain. I am sure you would easily find people willing to pay the "ransom". Preventing (legit) access to knowledge that some people can't afford is not right in my book, but rewarding people willing to support you is totally OK - I think this could be achieved with "ransomware" approach. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment53http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment53Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:07:10 GMT I guess they want to build their OWN ORMAPPBlock, their OWN MOCKOBJsAPPBlock, etc. I guess help Ayende in hir current work isn´t an option, hire Ayende to write code inside their offices may be :P. I like to develop on .NET, but when my JAVA co-workers tell me things like that I have no arguments... http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment52http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment52Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:52:56 GMTWhere is the MS money bag when you need it? Scott Gu please let Ayende continue his work with the .NET platform. /Morten Lyhr http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment51http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment51Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:59:59 GMTI would think that the amount of users who you will reach with the videos will go down which is probably a reason not to go with this option. At least I take it that with the videos your primary goal is to reach / educate people, charging will have a negative effect. Sponsoring, embed audio / video ads might be a better alternative. I'm sure there would be a couple of parties interested in this. Especially if these videos are a bit more advertised then the amount of viewers could go up so the cost per user would go down which would make advertising more feasible. Another option would be to place ads on this blog / on the feed for this blog. Of products you like etc. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment50http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment50Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:36:11 GMTI could see paying for the download if a few things were done, 1. Direct Download option (torrent would be fine with there was always a seeder). 2. Compressed (zip, lzh, 7zip) download of accompanying code samples with the video(s). 3. Sub 10 dollars a video. You should honestly look at also OSS friendly advertising; going with a direct sponsor. There are 'non-intrusive' ways of doing it. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment49http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment49Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:38:16 GMTAsk and you shall receive. A lot of these suggestions call for additional labor and therefore completely miss the point... There is an intrinsic value in watching an architect at work which will never be a part of a computer science degree... that we're willing to pay thousands for. I, for one, will pay. Hit up JetBrains to sponsor with a splash screen if there's not enough demand for the pay version =) http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment48http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment48Tue, 15 Apr 2008 03:17:29 GMTI haven't read through all of the comments but I do have a few suggestions (that perhaps have already been mentioned). Read www.techdirt.com (no i do not work there, just one of my daily reads). The site talks about monetizing on free/easy to distribute content quite a bit. Some of the better suggestions for monetizing on a non-scarce (once produced) commodity is to add value to said commodity for different groups. For instance keeping the screen casts free, and then making packaged bundles that you would sell for different prices. An example of this would be to sell dvds with your screen casts, iPod format screencasts, bundles of the source-code used in each screen cast, etc. Another option is to attempt other forms of bundles, i.e. "Sign up through netflix and get access to unlimited Ayende Screencasts!" There are a lot of different potential business models and I suggest looking to the indy music industry for some examples. Anyway, that's my two cents. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment47http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment47Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:30:27 GMTAnother option would be to work the donation angle a little bit more. You can use psychology to your advantage to increase your donation revenue by doing such simple things as making the link to the torrent file a textbox labeled "Donation" with a submit button that would take the user through a donation process before pushing them the torrent file if they enter in more than $0. You could even list a suggested price. If someone wants it for free, they actually have to type in $0. I know it sounds odd, but a percentage of people will feel too guilty to leave it at $0 and a percentage of people who leave it at $0 will end up donating after they watch the screencast and determine the dollar amount they think it is worth to them. That being the case, you just have to drive more hits to your site to increase the donation stream. I know that it may sound like a crazy idea, but I've had a little bit of experience with it myself. I was in a band that gave away its album on the band's website, but there was a big fat donate link right by the download link. The percentage of donations to downloads stayed pretty constant while I was tracking it for several months. The actual amount of each donation was all over the map. The moral of the story is that a percentage of people will donate what they consider the product's value to be if you give them a little nudge to do so. I'm not trying to say that this is the best way to get some money for your efforts, but rather, it is another possible option. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment46http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment46Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:06:05 GMTdude, you give SO DAMN MUCH to the 'community' or people who give a s**t about never being mediocre (or even approaching it). You represent the level of dedication and passion (not to mention raw gray matter) I wish I could expect from even a fraction of the people I encounter. I have been a silent reader and benificiary of your work for a long time now and in my opinion you deserve this and much, much more. Of al the people I have 'awareness of' in overlapping interesting of software engineering, my heavy work in DSLs (of which I consider you a global thought leader), 'infrastructure as commodity' (meaning I suppose the elimination of solving the same problems over and over as people insist on doing still), you are by far the most prolific and generous. If I had my way you would make X a year where X is whatever you needed to be extremely happy and you just doing exactly what you do already. Thanks, Damon Wilder Carr, CTO agilefactor http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment45http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment45Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:49:18 GMTAnother possibility: Sell your screen casts through itunes or amazon or something. If they were under $5, and it was friction free to download and pay for (like with itunes or amazon) I would buy...and I am very stingy. I think your content is worth money, but the inconvenience of having to register/give credit card/etc. is enough to make me lose interest. Having suggested this, I have no idea how hard it is to get amazon or itunes to sell your video, but am curious to find out. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment44http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment44Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:05:29 GMT"Estimated cost of producing a single screen cast is 3,500$ - 10,000$ each, ", bull, if it cost this much and you have been doing it in the past, youare either independantly wealthy, or are very close to living in the street. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment43http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment43Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:54:36 GMTMy thoughts: * free (or reduced) version if you use Bit Torrent * less than $10 version for direct download * no ads Publish somewhere other than your blog, i.e. setup a site to offer them (a-la peepcode) http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment42http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment42Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:42:26 GMTI will gladly pay for the Hibernating Rhinos videos if it will keep the spigot open. I have learned a lot from them. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment41http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment41Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:36:33 GMT@joak -- That's a strange interpretation of economics and the fundamental concepts of trade. I'm not sitting in a fancy window office overlooking Madison avenue with my feet propped up on the back of a young intern, but I'm pretty sure that the point of advertising is to increase demand, not to price yourself out of the market. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment40http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment40Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:05:25 GMTif you're going to charge for videos people would expect certain level of quality... maybe it's easier to offer videos for free, but offer people to donate on the download page? each viewer can pitch in if they have resources and find the video of value. at the same time there's no pressure. you can also start make blog / downloads ads-driven (offer premium account for people who don't want ads?), but that's more work. another option, mentioned previously, is to look for a sponsor. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment39http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment39Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:03:16 GMTAs a developer I really appreciate you're style and approach to development and believe I have gained a lot of benefit and insight on just your blog alone. Having said that I still don't think I would pay per download of any one specific digital content. Although I reckon I would purchase a book if you wrote one on pragmatic development. Otherwise I think your most effective model would be to offer a subscription model say ($25-$50 per year) to access premium content like your screencasts - even if I didn't watch your screencasts I would still pay just on the efforts you dedicate to your blog alone. http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment38http://ayende.com/3274/paying-for-hibenrating-rhinos#comment38Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:23:10 GMT