Recurring Donation Feedback

[Rigger]

Hey guys! I signed up for your recurring donation about two weeks ago, and had some feedback regarding the process.

First: Simply finding the optioon to donate $5/mo was difficult enough - I had to struggle with the Psuedopod, site, then the Paypal site, and had to attempt the transaction twice in order to get anywhere. It kept defaulting me to a one-time donation.

Second: I wanted to donate more than $5/mo. However, this was the only option I could find on any of your sites! Please provide a $10 and $15 option - or coordinate with Pay-Pal so we can choose or insert our own donation amounts.

Third: A thank you letter would have been nice. I know you guys are short staffed, but even an automated message saying "Thanks for your donation!" would have been grand, rather than my Paypal receipt.


So push those recurring donations a bit more - give us options to donate in different amounts, and simplify the process... please! I consider myself a fairly technical guy, and if I am having a hard time setting up payments, it's possible you are losing revenue this way.

Anyway, I hope this feedback helps. Keep up the great work, and thanks for all your efforts so far!

[oddpod]

i got a thanks leter when i started donating, thow that was a wile ago now

[davedoty]

I wasn't sure from your post if you donated to one site, or all three.

The last I heard, the donations from all three sites went into one big pot, so if you only donated to one, donating to all three is really the equivalent of donating $15 a month.

I agree that variable amounts would be better, and I believe that's on their to-do list.

[Ben Phillips]

I agree that variable amounts would be better, and I believe that's on their to-do list.

We have a custom app in alpha testing, yeah.

Rigger, really sorry about the trouble man.  We are working on it.  And for what it's worth:  thanks very much for subscribing!

[oddpod]

is thare still talk of subscriber "perks" in the works?

[Ben Phillips]

is thare still talk of subscriber "perks" in the works?

Talk yes, plans no.  Mainly because we can't figure out what kind of perks there should be.  We don't want to do exclusive content.  We talked about giving subscribers a custom URL from which they can download shows a few days before anyone else, but I'm a little fuzzy on how authentication, etc., is going to work for that; and personally I think it's a little weird to have a few people "in the know" discussing the stories a few days before everyone else, but whatever.  We talked about little badges on the forum for regular donors, but I think those would have to be meticulously hand-adjudicated by the mods based on financial data we share with them...  again, a little weird IMO.  Not impossible, though.  It raises questions like, "Should I weigh the feedback of a donor more heavily than others'?"  And (especially until we have the donations app in place so you can choose an amount per month, but also regardless), "Shouldn't generous one-time donors get badges too?  How generous do they have to be?"

See?  Kinda weird.  Maybe I'm overthinking all this, though.

[Heradel]

is thare still talk of subscriber "perks" in the works?

Talk yes, plans no.  Mainly because we can't figure out what kind of perks there should be.  We don't want to do exclusive content.  We talked about giving subscribers a custom URL from which they can download shows a few days before anyone else, but I'm a little fuzzy on how authentication, etc., is going to work for that; and personally I think it's a little weird to have a few people "in the know" discussing the stories a few days before everyone else, but whatever.  We talked about little badges on the forum for regular donors, but I think those would have to be meticulously hand-adjudicated by the mods based on financial data we share with them...  again, a little weird IMO.  Not impossible, though.  It raises questions like, "Should I weigh the feedback of a donor more heavily than others'?"  And (especially until we have the donations app in place so you can choose an amount per month, but also regardless), "Shouldn't generous one-time donors get badges too?  How generous do they have to be?"

See?  Kinda weird.  Maybe I'm overthinking all this, though.

iTunes allows authentication for podcasts, but I'm not sure how that would play with other podcatchers.

[eytanz]

One good model that is used by other podcasts (drabblecast, for example, with its bbardles) is to let very generous donors commission some small bit of additional content - which will be shared with everyone. So, for example, have a random donor a month choose a topic for Alasdair to talk about for 3-5 minutes.