THE BRITISH TECH NETWORK

The Last and the Next 2 Years

27 Jul 10

The second birthday of Bagel Tech News Daily is just around the corner and I set myself the target of making something of the show within that time frame. I started with no listeners for the first 5 episodes and was broadcasting to my own reflection every morning. Within 2 weeks Bagel Tech News was selected as ‘Podcast of the Week on Net@Night with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte and from that point forwards the numbers grew

So where are we now? At the present time, we consume an enormous amount of bandwidth and have between 55 & 70,000 downloads per month across about 2000 to 3000 listeners. I’m not sure how I was ever going to measure whether the podcast was successful or not but to some degree that doesn’t matter.

By the time you read this it will probably be about the 10th draft and I will have had more second thoughts than is possible in such a short space of time but it needs to be written and I hope you can understand why I’m asking you for your moral support and to tap your skills and kindness yet further.

I AM NOT ASKING FOR MONEY. Please don’t think that giving me money will solve any of the problems I am listing below, it won’t

In these two years I have a huge cast of benefactors to thank and I have been fortunate enough to make some friends who I will cherish for the rest of my life and in the marvellous age we live in...I haven’t even met most of them. Bagel Tech News will always be something that I hold dear and which I treasure as an experience and always will. But along with these nice sentiments there comes a harsh reality.

Getting up at 5.30am every morning for the last two years has taken its toll. Trolling through 250 stories per day takes around 1.5 hours and making the podcast takes another 40 minutes. Selecting pictures for the M4A feed and fitting them into Garageband takes about another 40 minutes and updating the website through iWeb takes 20 minutes. Then I go to my proper job which pays me money.

I am fortunate that I have a job which allows me time to do this and still pays me enough for a nice standard of living but the time to do Bagel Tech doesn’t come from my day job, it comes from my family and with 2 young children, the mornings are seeming earlier and the effort so much greater.

Bagel Tech News Daily is no hobby, I assure you. It is a long and hard task and without the kind words I receive from truly great people, it would be a real chore. What is doubly difficult is being rewarded by kind comments from listeners and being the preferred choice of listening from my peers in the tech podcasting community. If you search iTunes for ‘Tech News’ in the UK we are returned in the top 50 for the last 12 months and some of our listeners are those in far loftier positions within the tech community.

The long and the short of this post is that I have come to the end of my competence and my ability to keep two jobs in the air. None of you owe me anything but we need to grow and grow rapidly. I have set a date of 25th December 2010 to decide if The Daily Show will continue or end. Bagel Tech BIG will continue regardless as this always was and always will my rewarding ‘hobby’

In order to do this I need YOUR help. I need you to become my viral marketers, my accounts department, my marketing consultants, my web developers, my promoters, my virtual assistants and my sales force. There are 3,000 of you out there all with diverse skills and talents and a fundamental desire for Bagel Tech to continue.
I NEED YOUR HELP and I need to tap into the large, diverse and benevolent family of Bagel Tech Listeners. I want all of the network to grow and all of the shows to grown in diversity and uptake.

If you would be any of the people above who can help me grow quickly, then I would be extremely grateful. Please email and lets start the process.

Finally, please don’t send me money, I need help to grow and your kindness will be invaluable and more than enough ‘payment’

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support and help and emotional investment in the last 2 years.

Ewen

britishtechnews@gmail.com

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The Last and the Next 2 Years

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