Advertising and Sponsorship Thoughts and Ideas

Almost every podcast/blog/website/whatever has to address the issue of paying for things at some point or another; this is my address.

Hike it all is and always will be freely available. When I started the show that was one of my first pillars. However, as you can guess, creating the content and hosting everything costs money; money I am more than glad to spend :). To help things along though we are adding a few small advertisements to the site. They are in the bottom of the sidebar on the pages. If you really do not want to see them you can always use Firefox and install the Customize Google extension; that works for us.

We are also looking for some sponsors. And by sponsors we mean people/companies that would like to advertise with us on the site and sponsor episodes of the show. With that said, we will not force any sponsors products down the throats of our viewers. We will also use full disclosure of everything we receive from any sponsor.

Since I am throwing all of this out there I need to state that the website does not cost much to operate. All of my camera equipment is stuff that I already own. All of the stuff that we have shown in the episodes, so far, is stuff that we already have. All of the video content is currently hosted for free by Blip.tv (thank you guys, you rock). The only real cost is hosting the site and the investment of time that Ryan and I make. Hosting only costs us $10/per month, thank goodness. Time is another issue all together. Ryan and I have no delusions of grandeur when it comes to making a living doing this. We would love to, but for now our time is freely given without complaint.

Now that all of that is out there I am going to propose something a little revolutionary. Every dollar we spend and receive is going to be logged in the wiki. This will serve several purposes…

1. Ryan and I can track things.
2. Provides a level of disclosure that is rarely seen.
3. Shows anybody interested in creating a podcast how much it costs.
4. Informs our viewers of the effort we are putting in.
5. Create a bidding war between sponsors (just kidding)

We will see how this little experiment goes. As always, please let us know if you have any thoughts, comments, etc. on this topic; good or bad, we want to hear them. We can be contacted by email at advertise@hikeitall.com, or you can make a comment on this post.

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Episode 7 - Light My Fire, Show Notes

This episode was one for the ages. We had tons of issues, logistics, and other various things to over come just to get it out there.

Ryan and I first starting talking about him joining me in early December. Over the course of the next few weeks we came up with several ideas and ways for him to join me as a co-host. Oh did I mention he lives in Washington state and I live in Arkansas? Yeah, that was why we discussed it so much.

For this episode we knew we could film it together because he was going to be in Arkansas for Christmas. So that is what we did, one random day we went out and filmed the entire episode and all was good. That is until I went to edit the film two weeks later. When I pulled the video over to my computer the first bit of it was ruined. I will spare you the details but it was basically a bad spot in the tape. So off to re-film the lead in!

After that issue was diverted I went back to finish editing, only to find that the last half of the video Ryan and I shot was inaudible because of the wind. When we filmed, the wind was blowing so hard that you could not hear a word that Ryan was saying. I guess that is what we get for filming right next to the banks of the Arkansas River. No big deal here we just had to narrate that section. That takes time and a lot of patients though…so that pushed the release off a week.

We finally got the video all put together and published. Then our video host had an issue making the Flash (web version) of the video. It soon became obvious that the issue on their server was not going to be fixed so I took matters into my own hands and made the Flash version myself. An upload, a blog post edit, and a little grief later the episode was in the books.

Through it all, I think we created a really good and very informative video. Ryan and I had a blast making it together; it is going to be interesting making the next episode with him back in Washington.

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Announcing the Hike it All Wiki

Ryan and I live hundreds of miles away from each other; he lives in Washington state and I live in Arkansas. So planning and creating new episodes of the show is going to be interesting. To help the process we have created the Hike it All Wiki.

Why a wiki? Becuase it is the easist way for Ryan and I to check off what needs to be done and collect new ideas for the show. Another cool thing is that we are leaving it open for the public to read and comment on. Having the viewers involved in the production side of making episodes is kind of new thing for a podcast (as far as I know).

So if you are boared or really like the show stop by the wiki to see the latest on what we are up to.

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Change in Schedule

It has become apparent that a new episode every other week was a bit optimistic. We are working up some longer more in-depth episodes and they take more time, as you can imagine.

With that said we are going to try and release a new episode every three weeks. We are still going to release on Friday in the morning hours. So instead of an episode today there will be a new episode next Friday (Jan. 18) and then another in three weeks (Feb. 8). Hopefully this schedule will work better for us and let us create a better show.

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New Co-host

I have some really good news. I am going to have a brand new co-host for the show! His name is Ryan Corder and he is a very good friend of mine.

Ryan has been hiking and backpacking his entire life. He is even a ninja level Eagle Scout; there really is no ninja level but if there was one Ryan would be a member. I know he is going to bring a whole new dimension to the show and I am excited that he wants to join me.

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