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The Paracast Plus Poll

Free episodes:

Forums New posts

Would You Subscribe to a Premium Paracast Pro Service? (Regular show and forums remain free!)

  • Yes

    Votes: 7 23.3%

  • No

    Votes: 14 46.7%

  • If yes, would you be willing pay more than $4.00 per month?

    Votes: 5 16.7%

  • If yes, would you want the price to fall below $4.00 per month?

    Votes: 6 20.0%

  • Sorry, I'm just not interested in paying for The Paracast Plus!

    Votes: 6 20.0%
  • Total voters
    30
Thanks for listening.

iOS 6 had some Wi-Fi issues. Maybe that's part of it. Get the 6.0.1 update and see if that helps.

As to the ads: We only pick up the audio ads, not the GCN banners.

When it comes to radio stations, any talk station covering conservative and liberal topics will often put a tech show or a paranormal show on the weekend. Remember that many of these stations carry "Coast To Coast AM" overnight.
 
Hey Gene how about making and selling a os paracast os gui, you know like the the windows black gui or alienware gui! I would buy it. What about desktop background pics or graphics. Just ideas
 
That sort of thing means having a developer working on something of that sort. If someone wants to volunteer and work on some ideas, we'd welcome it. Thanks.
 
Import a Paracast file into a free audio program such as 'Audacity'. Then just use the cursor to highlight the ad segments (they are extremely easy to spot) and delete them.
Export as an mp3 and hey presto - an episode of the paracast minus the ads forever more.

It really takes a couple of minutes and thats that.
 
That's fine if you do it for yourself -- but we aren't allowed to remove the ads from the online versions that we post. I think I've made that clear. :)
 
I think that you should start some sort of plus service Gene. But you would probably need to keep the price down to something around $3.50 a month or less, depending on how much additional content was produced. I would be willing to pay more than that per month if I could get both the Tech Night Owl and The Paracast podcasts ad-free, but it sounds like under your current agreement that won't be possible.

I have paid extra for podcasts on 2 separate occasions, and I felt like I got good value for my money given how many hours of extra content per month I received. One is the Mysterious Universe Plus service, and the other is the Ricochet.com membership that includes many of their podcasts on a single feed on iTunes, plus exclusive content on their web site.

I don't pay for any cable or satellite TV, so I don't mind paying a few extra dollars for podcasts that I can listen to in my car or wherever I am throughout the day.
 
My thoughts (and first post!):

I would absolutely pay a subscription fee for a couple of reasons. I don't believe it's really hard for people to come up with a few dollars to support the efforts here. Now, before people call me an elitist for saying that let me ask a few questions:
1). How much are you paying for your cell phone monthly? The data plan?
2). How much do you spend on fast food in a week? A month?
3). If you smoke, how much are you shelling out per day? Same for dippers.
4). Order pizza once a month? Shoot, once every three months and the math still works.
5). Eat out (any place counts) in a month?
6). How about beer?
7). The Internet connection you're using right now?

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

I understand there are exceptions to every 'rule' and I'm sure a few access the Internet from the library, etc. My respectful contention is almost everyone can afford $6.95 a month if they *want* to. Think about it ladies and gents. We all love the no BS atmosphere represented here. Surely we can find $1.75 a *week*?!

Cheers my (I hope) new friends!
-SAP
 
Thinking about it further: if Gene & company start a premium service, I'll pay for my subscription plus two more for a minimum of a year. No freeloaders! Only those that might need a hand-up. We are all in this together.
 
Thanks for your support. I think Chris and I have a fairly good idea of what we'd want to do with this service. Right now, the inhibiting factor is the programming back-end for the forums and site to enable the subscription service, and how it will give you access to the special features and content.

We could use some Web development help, with PHP expertise of course, to make it so. Anyone?
 
Sorry for the multi-post, stream of conscience.

I get that ads must stay (for now). Maybe a direct e-mail address where subscribers can reach you? Perhaps a forum banner attached to our avatars that say something like "committed supporter"? Or priority queuing for questions for upcoming guests?

I think at this point, supporting the program is more a vote of confidence rather than you guys busting your ass to provide extra content. I really support what you're doing. These are guys providing balance to other......programs......; clearly a labor of love. I can get behind that any day.

These are just my opinions and nothing more.
 
Wow! Looking at that survey makes me burn! These guys put all that effort in to the Paracast and more and that's it, that's what you got? I am not wealthy but I've got more than five bucks to give them for about 4 episodes a month AND it's already FREE you cheap &%$#@!
Gime, gime, gime, me, me, me!
Disgusting!
 
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As mentioned before, for me it's not so much about the difference between 4 or 5 or 6 bucks a month, it's about payment methods, terms of service, and features. IMO it needs more than just a commercial-free audio version. If the premium service also included show transcripts and express consent for writers, researchers and reviewers to use them in their work, that would be a huge plus for me.
 
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I don't hate the idea of a transcript service but I don't think it should necessarily be built in the base price of a paracast+ membership. They should be offered on an individual basus to anyone. It sounds a little too much for $50 yr. imho.

I signed up the service but to reiterate what I've long mentioned going back to when this subject first came up. There are just some subjects that don't interest me and I don't listen to every episode, but at $5/month or $50 year it is a good trade off.
 
It would probably mean more work and more editing though as you're bound to hit a snag with inappropriate words that didnt translate well. Could make for a titillating read though.
 
If the network flatly refuses to allow you to remove the ads under any circumstances, even from the oldest archived shows, how will it be possible for you to launch an ad-free service at all? So why are we even discussing this?

Also, if the way it works is that you make the shows by yourself with no input from the network, then they insert the ads, who owns the material? Does your contract mean that none of this material is your intellectual property, so the network can do whatever it likes with every show in the archive forever, but you can't? Or is the original version of the show before the ads were added your intellectual property, meaning that although this particular network won't broadcast it, you can broadcast or upload it anywhere else on the internet?
 
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