Is it time for Aural Moon to expand??
 

I'm sorry if this is not the appropriate place to bring this up, but I wonder if it isn't time for Aural Moon to expand its listener base by adding another 50-100 connections to the server (and preferably at 80k or better).

I've been talking with a few people about Aural Moon recently, and one of the comment that has come up of late is that they don't try to log on much because when they do so, the server is full so they go somewhere else.

It seems to me that during the weekdays (American time), the server is at or near capacity for several hours. Anyway, I was wondering what the regulars here thought about it. It seems like a lot of the progressive stations get nothing for listeners, yet AM and Delicious Agony manage to get over 100.

Now there are new stations cropping up like AOL's progressive stations. While I'm happy AOL even considered a progressive rock station, there's something a little stomach turning about a big name getting involved. My worry is that they will capture eventually a large portion of the listening share, but they won't deal in progressive rock much beyond fairly typical acts.

Anyway, just a thought up for discussion.


- Cozy

Part of the problem with this is that we currently have to pay for the stream by connection. Adding connections will simply increase the cost for the stream. It's like that on every site I've seen that even considers hosting streaming audio. I'm investigating alternatives, but of those I've seen, they're either too expensive or too limiting for our usage.

We're still looking, though.

Roger -Dot- Lee, BOY am I looking.

It is an interesting dilemma. From a listener standpoint, there's probably a market out there right now for 3-4 times what we have. But the main thing is no one has a monetary interest or anything to gain other than the love of the music.

It is very to difficult to maintain a solid base while having basically no funding. It's a testament to Jim, Roger, and Vax that they keep it going without much (or any) $ support.

Sometime in the next year, if all goes according to plan, I should be involved in a company that will have computer support and possibly the resources available for an expansion. I just hope the company grows enough to be ready when and if Aural Moon is ready.

That's the frustrating thing....the demand is there, and the musicians I cross paths with support us.

So, to me, it's not inappropriate, it's a great question, and I just hope to be part of it when the Moon flourishes as it could.

If any one can help me come up with a business model that would turn Aural Moon into a break even proposition, we would love to expand. As it is, I spend well over a thousand dollars a year to keep Aural Moon running, and that's net of the money received from the 128K patrons. It would be 2.5X that much without the patrons. I absolutely intend to maintain Avian's vision of NOT having commercials on the stream.

Okay, well that helps to at least get an idea. You guys would like/have intention to expand, but finances are the chief concern.

I have a few suggestions that are fairly obvious ones.


1) Besides the patron program, start a smaller general donation drive. It might bring in only $50/month, but anything would help.

2) Find sponsers/investors. You could do something along the lines of CD Universe/Amazon. On the "buy now" links, you could link it up with some popular vendors like Lasers Edge, Syn-Phonic or Wayside. It's heavy in logistics, but it might help.

3) Another sponser benefit instead of commercial space "per se", might be to do some programming that highlights artists on a particular label. For example, you got all those Mellow albums. You could do a Mellow hour once or twice /week that highlights songs from those artists. Instead of DJ programming, you could have little 30 sec blurps during the broadcast reinforcing what you are highlighting.


4) Win the lottery and buy AOL. :D



- Cozy

Well, as you know (Jim, Roger and a few other listeners do) I have a server here that is earmarked to take on the AM Web Site and the bandwidth to support it. It's quite alot of server -- in fact, it's probably overkill -- and I doubt AM will outgrow this. Moving the AM web site to this server is going to take the time -- nothing more as I'm footing the bill for server and bandwidth -- but that time is almost as hard to come by as funds for AM. Roger Lee giving up his unemployed status (I'm happy for him too) has eroded his free time. Anyway, once that move is effected, that will free up some funds which I would hope Jim will devote to more streams, etc. for the station.

I'd love to host the AM station too. The issue there is not the hardware but the bandwidth. I pay significant fees for T1 (DS1 ATM) and there's simply no way I can afford DS3 ATM. Believe me, if I could there'd be no lack of streams. A DS3 could easily support 1000+ 56K streams.

We need to get some more of the listeners to pony up some money. The $50 fee is NOTHING... That's less than 15¢ a day.

Commercials? Please, never! I'm not even that fond of the station IDs.

1) Is generally supported by us hard core people, but not necessarily by the masses. It's worth a try, if needed.

2) and 3) are part of the business model that's being developed by the company I've been mentioning. But as it is presented this blurs the line into advertising. Until the model is developed (we do have an idea Jim but it's unfortunately quite a few months away) this may be all we can do. Jim's contributions earn him the right to keep the vision intact.

4) I hate the lottery more than vax hates Microsoft.

This should be reevaluated and discussed often...I'd like to see Aural moon grow.

Good points by all.


Regarding #2and/or#3, I can do a little more research on this if needed. I'm sure I can rally up some interest. Unless you have a lot of money or situations in your favor that allow you to skirt price (having your own hosting space, etc), with growth may indeed come some sort of volley into advertisment. I agree as well, that I find full-on advertisment not a good idea, but this at least gives those that would sponser something for their efforts.

I wonder how much the costs would change if someone else did the hosting....

Also, I think it's very important to at least get an idea of how much AM could expand. I would think unless you went more commercial and were picked up by a carrier that anything over 500 listeners would be a pipe dream. But I certainly think there's market for 300+. I agree let's discuss it more.

- Cozy

Wouldn't the simplest solution be to have a yearly pledge drive targetting the listeners?

We talked about this alot when Avian, Jim and Roger were considering changing "white" to some other format. Sorry...I don't have the techie lingo, but some of you will remember.

Various levels of pledging, including the level that gets you the 128k stream, and a one time a year pledge so that nobody has to keep track of monthly listener pledge amounts.

I have no idea how much money we're talking to expand the station...but if Jim thinks that the active listener base could support it, I'm willing to put my money where my ears are.

OK. Here's the new model... (Tongue in cheek)

Rule #1: Everyone that wants to request must have a paypal-like account.

Rule #2: Every request debits the requester's account by 1¢/minute of airplay. (rounded up to the next minute... hell, if the cell phone companies can get away with it, why not AuralMoon)

Rule #3: Everytime you request the same song, the price for you doubles.

This would certailly put money in the stations pockets and limit the replay of certain "epics" over and over and over again. You know who you are!


Let's see how this would work...

Supper's Ready would net the station 23¢ every time it's requested. Assuming a certain requester really likes Supper's Ready, it would cost 46¢ the next time it's requested and then 92¢.... $1.84... $3.68... $7.36... $14.72... pretty soom, they'll have spent enough to have purchased a copy of the song -- HELL, THE WHOLE CD -- and may actually consider it instead of over-requesting it. See, everybody wins!

Assuming all 24 hrs of a day was requests, this would net the station about $400.00 a month; $5000 a year. More, of course, if we have habitual requesters (and we do) and habitual "epic" requesters (and we most certainly do)!

Substitute Supper's Ready for Blue Shift, Sebastian Hardie, KC, Yes, GY!BE, The Flower Kings, etc. etc...

The monies are staggering. :D

For our UK friends, substitute p for ¢. :p (Exchange rates are awful!)

Poodle piddle. It's not OUR fault that they don't use the good olde greenback. One for one, I say!

(said tongue in cheek, since I've only seen one overrequester that WASN'T a US based carbon unit. So it really wouldn't be a problem, I suppose)

Basically I likethis idea:D , there would be some ppl spending after half a year 50 bucks to listen their GYBE!, good price for our suffering....:D

But, seriously speaking, I do not think that this reflects the spirit of this station.:rolleyes:

Comming back to the original thread it would be great to have a possibility to increase the number of listeners in order to be able to share prog and this magnific place with more people in the world. But of course I see also the economic problem in this, bearing in mind that this should be a non commercial site (and I am more than 100% in favour of that).

But arising some funds means also to be a little organized in the only organized funds arising area, which is the 128 k stream. I am on that stream now since March 2004, but no mail came, that I have to renew this privilege, and I guess, no other moonie got something like that. Or have I been forgotten with the change of ownership? (US $ 50 on the way to you Jim in a couple of min for the next year...:) )

But maybe we should think also about another idea. Some of us are able and willing to donate some more. But for this I e.g. would like to have a proposal from management with the goal and the costs involved (like the new chat, which never was realized due to technical reasons, but had some funds collected) in order to make this goal also our private and personal goal.

I repeat myself: I hope, that AM remains an abolute non commercial station, only supported by the listeners.

In order to do it right, we may need more than what can be collected from us.

By the way vax, we should include Dark Matter also;)

Thank you Lotus, I've received it. What happened is, last August I took over financial responsibility from Avian. As soon as I did, I began tracking patron donations. Now that it's been a year, I know who has and hasn't paid - and at some point in the future we may change the address of the 128K stream to force people to repay. But I had no visibility into patron donations prior to that.

Your tongue may be in cheek, but if you and/or dot can program it, I would seriously consider implementing it. Especially if we can do a "one free request per week"or something like that...

[
So you want to take money for requests - Good idea except I'm afraid the silent majority will then say "Fine - then why do I have to wait for at least 1 hour if not more to hear it being played? If I'm to pay then the station must at least give an accurate time when it plays"
Some will get pis***** off and say OK with me I'll go somewhere else, which could be an advantage.

This is not a criticism but just a thought. I don't request that much as I often miss it being played. (Although I like the doubbling idea !)

Haven't we better discuss another model and that is paying for being registered, which is necessary for requesting and listening to the 56 k.- Don't forget administering the request system as Vax describes will be a painfull time comsuming thing. It would be better to keep payments in larger chunks. I have before mentioned the fact that it shouldn't be absolutley free to be a member and clog the database.

I love no advertising but Cozy does have a couple of points worth looking into. I know from my sports world that being a minority makes it extremely hard to find sponsership money unless the owner himself is a complete prog nut.

I take my hat for Jim but when I first saw Cozy's note I was thinking perhaps in terms of a second server in Europe which could be a cheaper option. But I've dropped the idea as it would mean 2 different streams although it would save us a lot shipping costs donating any music.

o.k. guys...i've been self employed for..daaamn!..
i just realized..over half my life this year!haha

jim, i almost mentioned this when you were having
to wrestle w/ taxes.

you DO know, that whover holds the biz license for AM
(please tell me you have one...) can deduct expenses as
"biz startup" down to the pencils and gas to the office max...

i have a biz license as "zenpool". for that $20, i deducted
all my keys, computer and software this year, and received
a $7000 refund.
next year, the same stuff amortizes 10%, so $6700.
plus next year, i get to deduct the cost of replicating my cd,
my new mixer, roland fantom, and even the sq.ft of the
spare bedroom the equipment occupies as office space.
anything that pertains to the music biz.

the govt. says i "have to be showing an attempt to profit".
w/ 5 years grace to do so.
cdbaby, towerrecordsonline, weedshare does that.
"the shingle's out".
it's a simple matter to obtain a new license under a different
name at the end of the 5 years.

so, do that and the station's free after your being
reimbursed by the gub-ment. the more server space, the larger the refund.
oh yeah... DON"T DO YOUR OWN TAXES!
a good accountant makes and saves you $$,
much more than they cost.
besides, they have to go to court w/ you if you're ever audited.

ok...something to sell.....

k

Did I hear my name?
 

Although I am an accountant, I'm not privy to any of the financial workings of Aural Moon. Kirk's scenario is essentially correct, but it's not that easy, and it's not a one for one deal.

I'm under the assumption Jim has these things worked out. If not, I'm happy to help. I'm good, and for the Moon, I'm free.

and it's not a one for one deal-

no, it is! things like home improvements aren't ,
but if it's approached as a small business, all startup
expenses are deductible.
i deducted every dime back 5 years on my equipment,
amortized to the current going price.

jim just has to show he's attempting to make money.

k

all I meant was, each dollar deducted does not net you back a dollar in tax. I'm aware of all of the business deductions.

(at least we're not talking about King's X :p )

And I think that's the rub here. Now I'm not an accountant, nor do I play one on TV, but Aural Moon isn't exactly under a money winning business model. It's a labor of love or we'd ALL be paying $10/month or more for the priviledge of the 56k stream, with an additional bonus of $25/month for the 128s.

And I'd likely be charging $25/30 per for my services. But I don't. And I wouldn't. I do it because of the love of the music (and the fact that I've got a few screws loose, but that's beside the point).

These figures are from the Thin Aire school of accounting, but in my estimation, that's about what it would run to make it profitable.

Roger -Dot- Lee, who really should get the latest updates into the library, but hasn't been able to maintain network uptime sufficient to even log into the station, let alone do something as time intensive as library updates.

Back to the music.....
 

There are many ways to look at it. Regardless of whether anyone "makes money" or "loses money" can be determined in a number of ways. (I have a reality show as an accountant. :rolleyes:)

I'm a firm believer in covering the fixed costs. In order to obtain and maintain the needed items to increase the listenership, a significant upgrade is needed in both time and funding. It does no good to make upgrades without the time commitment.

I have no clue as to the investment needed to run the station if there's an upgrade. Technical wizardry is not in my blood. But I can budget a wart off of an ass of a rhino.

In other words, if I'm supplied all of the numbers and time figures at some point regarding an upgrade, I can certainly tell you what it would take to break even.

About the price for the satellite radio services. Just to put this in perspective, I'd wager that the lion's share of the listeners here pay for TV.

Wow, you're cheap!

well, yeah...there's the problem. you need more server space.
the only way to get it, is either finding deeper, or dipping
into listener's pockets.

IMO, that won't work. the few loyalists you have
here in the forum obviously don't make up the 125 or so
(according to shoutcast) peak hr. listeners.
that faceless majority will likely switch stations,
especially w/ one PRRN station's free 80k stream,
and another @128k.
it's a tough sell when the competition's giving it away.

APPEARING TO ATTEMPT to make money is a far cry from
actually making money.
if i started showing a profit, i'd buy some TV time or something
so i didn't...understand? if i show a profit, i have to pay taxes...
not the goal.
the other way, i'm building my "brand", promoting my project
for free.
i would then write off the ads next year as part of a business loss.
also, i don't pay sales tax on my equipment or related items
(like my computer).
it's used to make a product for resale (cds).
the tax is collected at the time of sale.
guitar center has my # on file, all purchases are to zenpool,
not me personally.


for AM, the easiest thing to sell is space.
sell banner ads to bands, cd sellers, prog record companies.
not jim or roger, AM the entity.
it doesn't matter how many you sell.
if they sell, it supports the station.
if they don't, jim can write the difference off to the
actual cost of running the station as a business loss.
it's the attempt that matters.
back it all up w/ receipts, the government's cool w/ it.

scaping up $2200 worth of write offs should be no problem.
it just has to be treated as a small business, rather than an
ever-increasing costly hobby that actually has an incentive
not to grow. it's likely you could increase listeners X3
as suggested, but under this scenario, why would you want to
do that?


k

which will net a portion back in real dollars. This is not a tax credit. You'll get back only whatever rate your tax bracket is in.

You can always write off business losses against income, but over time you can never get back enough to offset the total dollars spent. Not even close. As you have stated, there are non-cash adjustments such as depreciation and mileage, but it is not significant here.

A common misconception is tax refunds vs. actual profit and loss. They are not the same thing.

I do agree with your point, Kirk, about expanding the station is not happening if it's just a hobby. Very true - the incentive is not there.

i'll PM you...this server space costs money!:D

k

I just want to point out that it's not server space needed, it's bandwidth.

The hardware is cheap -- almost disposable -- and, for all intents and purposes, a one time cost. The internet bandwidth to support more listeners is what costs money and it's a recurring cost.

Hold up, Kirk and Rick. I'm going to e-mail Rick, and we'll start the detailed discussion. I'm looking for a good accountant anyway, as my tax situation is fairly complex. (If I ask you for advice not related to Aural Moon, you can charge me at your normal rate.)

The Moon is non profit. Now I can't command the triple digit per hour rate that you get, but for what I do, I command market rates. Or maybe a little more...

At least that's what I've been told...

thanks vax-
not my field of expertise.
i'm a computer audio expert, but can't even spell HTML!;)

all i know is, whatever it is, you need more of it,
and it's going to be more expensive to get it..no?:D

what's needed is a way to defray costs so the
station can grow.

that either has to come from the pockets of the admin here,
or a way has to be found to bring it in from outside.
there has to be a business model in place, so that
growth isn't just a bigger financial burden.


k

How would it do that? We'd still need the original CD to be legal. Having the remote server wouldn't change that. Simply having an off-shore server wouldn't free us from our copyright obligations, I don't believe.

Am I missing something?

Roger -Dot- Lee, not a lawyer, and grateful for that.

You're correct dot...although I'm not sure if that's what Rogor was saying...although I'm never really sure what he's saying:D

Thanks for stepping in Jim...I was getting a bit uncomfortable talking about Moon finances (and guessing no less!).

Kirk and I have taken our discussion offline..and it's a good one at that.

Look forward to the email.....

Hey everyone. I've been away for a week and just got back. I've scanned this thread loosely and just wanted to throw a few comments out.

I like VAX's idea of $0.01 per minute on requests. I'd cut down on requests as a whole (for good or for ill), but would bring in a little money. However, the idea of doubling the price when something is requested again I think is not good. It's less a deterrent and instead seems punitive. The fact that RQs cost anything would be enough. Let them RQ Supper's Ready ten times - that's $2.30, baby.

Another way to raise money for the station is to do little "fund-raisers" like selling old cds through the site give half to AM, etc. Lots of possibilities there.

But that payola idea of VAX's is killer. Take off the doubling repeated requests thing and I say go with it.

I'm surprised so many think my idea would/could work. Especially since it was clearly written to be facetious and cheeky.

I don't. So that proves the point it must be a good idea.:p

Personally I liked it in a 'what if' sorta way. My first thought when I saw it was "I'd never have the time to code it." My second was "I don't NEED to, since Vax can." :D

To all trying so hard......
 

From a listeners viewpoint:
I request seldom, what "pay-pal" type entity could bother with pitling accounts of 10 cents or so for a month of requests to bill me for it.
When I click on a Sound stream, I get it, I don't understand the Moons listeners limit when I've never been limited.
I have no problem with Ad banners on the site, there is an abundonce of empty module space at the bottom of the Homepage and frankly I seldom slide down there anyway,
Just no Audio advertisment!!! Print ads are a part of America from stadiums to urinal billboards,Big deal, I don't think artistic Banners of Proggy products lessens the site or its vision.
If you what more listeners Who therefor will love your product so much they wiil want to subscribe and send you money) these are my thoughts:
Bill requests if you must but show when they will appear, I don't request because I'm usually not around by the time it comes up an hour later. I have always wished that the COMING UP NEXT list was longer, this list keeps me here sometimes when I was going elsewhere.
Now this one will be hard for Dr. D and Jim to swallow as it goes directly against their intent
Play better music and get more listeners
As the Moon has strived to have the most complete libraries of Prog artists on the planet, it fails to recognize why some bands sell millions of CD's and some only thousands and most of us Prog. Historians never heard of. There are times I turn away from the stream because although nice, many of the lesserknowns just are not as talented. No, I don't want to see just the dino's, just abetter balance with the giants weighted for more airplay than the smaller bands. As an owner of thousands of recordings and a record dealer in the 80's, I am suprised when 6 bands are listed and none well known. Not a selling point for more listening.
Finally, For more money you need more listeners, Years ago 32 was a common number in the currant listeners listing, you have grown but you need more to increase revenues, as with TV and Commercial radio, Listeners= revenue, good programing=Listeners, average programming = nobody home.........We all lose

By the way.....
 

I consider the 128k stream a thank you for my donation, not a service for a fee. If that was the case I would complain about it being down(aka buffering) so much. Is this the concequense of limited bandwidth? If so Then I'm starting to see the Moons growth problems. If you pay for a service you expect to get it

Re: By the way.....
 

For the most part, no. The bulk of the rebuffer problems comes about because of limitations in the system that the station runs on. Specifically CPU related. We're investigating alternatives, but as far as I've been able to see, there's nothing economically and technically feasable...at least nothing that won't run in the thousands of dollars.

I'm still looking, though.

Roger -Dot- Lee

sharc- if the station's rebuffering constantly, it's probably
your server. i think once, a year ago or so the stream
bounced to 24k, but other than that i've never had a problem
w/ rebuffering or accessing.
many users don't know this, but all dsl/broadband isn't created equal.
if a server has more than 300 users per hub, which i believe
has something like a 3 mile limitation,
all the old problems w/ dialup, like not being able to access occur.
------------------------------------

guys- i'd really float this past BMI and ASCAP,SESAC.
you can't just rent or lease music, (which is in essense,what you'd be doing,
collecting revenue for playing an artist's music.)
i'm fairly certain that they'd see it as you needing
to pay the requested artists royalties.

on the other hand, 10 revolving banners @$25 for 30 days
pays for the current server space.
i'd call it the "introductory rate" in case demand is high.
as a selling point, i suggest you don't place banners
at the bottom where no one ever looks.:rolleyes:

i haven't heard back from PDJ on this, but everyone else i've mentioned a
compilation disk to has responded w/ a (!!) .
..i happen to know someone w/ a decent production facility...
and award-winning to boot! ;)
yesfans just released a fundraiser cd, my bud von's band ONOFFON was on MSJ's
"got prog?" compilation.
everything i'm suggesting is pretty much "tried and true",
not experimenting w/ a winning formula.