Sustainable Funding Series — Grant Report #2

Project Update

The past month or so for us has been focused on the education world, both in wrapping up a College Course that we were teaching and beginning to teach a new course. In both courses, which are focused on digital storytelling, we have been adding in teases to the world of web monetization. And then the lion's share of our time this past month has gone to preparing and delivering a series of talks and workshops - 7 in total - 2 of which were targeted to sustainable funding for creators and the web monetization standard, and in the others we added in mention to this where it made sense.

Progress on Objectives

Our objectives with this project are to learn from others about their successes and challenges in utilizing the web monetization standard, conduct our own experiments in utilizing the web monetization standard, demonstrate different pathways forward with sustainable funding models and the web monetization standard, and create resources for creators to learn about the web monetization standard from in the form of vlogcast interviews, case studies, and online open educational resources.

The video below, which was filmed a year ago when we were first applying to Grant for the Web as a thank you for an educational bursary from the AMTEC Trust, gives you a taste to platforms that we are sharing our Sustainable Funding Interviews and Case Studies with Creatives to on StoryToGo.ca. While we are still sharing these interviews to YouTube to reach a broader audience, Cinnamon has become our beloved video platform for the interviews, and where we are now releasing our content to first.

Partly with intent and partly due to circumstance, we've been working through our project in stages.

• Stage 1 (which you can read about below) was focused on community building and experimentation.

Sustainable Funding Series — Grant Report #1

Erica Hargreave for Sustainable Funding ・ Mar 19 '21 ・ 6 min read

#grantreports

• Stage 2 (which we've just wrapped up)involved early alpha design of educational materials on web monetization for our college courses, talks, and workshops.

• Stage 3 (which we are currently entering at present) will be focused on new interviews and case study creation.

• Stage 4 will involve the production of open educational resources around the web monetization standard and sustainable funding for creatives.

As we are very much enjoying doing all of this, the above cycle will continue after we complete our Grant for the Web deliverables.

Key Activities

Our key activities since our last report have been to:

• Develop some teaser content in BCST 3073 - Building Your Digital Media Presence to the web monetization standard on the course home feed and in the feedback to students on their assignments and in a closing email on the course. More formal content on the web monetization standard will be added to the main body of the course in the Autumn offering of the course.

• Adding web monetized social media platforms to the main course material in BCST 1193 - Social Media Storytelling. To date, gFam has been added to the Unit on Photo Networking, mg.social to the Unit on Microblogging, and Cinnamon will be added to the upcoming Unit on Digital Storytelling with Video / Sound. I'd also like to add some web monetized podcasting platforms to that Digital Storytelling with Video / Sound Unit and need to explore as to whether Tribe of Noise or Free Music Archives would make sense there too.

• Gave talks on Sustainable Funding Solutions for Creatives and Educators at the Canadian Network for Innovation in Education Conference and on the Web Monetization Standard as a Solution for Sustainable Funding of Open Educational Resources at the OERxDomains21 Conference. You can watch a recording of that talk below. Thanks to my talks at the CNIE Conference, I was awarded an AMTEC Trust Award for a second year in a row to go towards the completion of my Master of Educational Technology studies.

• Informally shared on the web monetization standard in other talks at the conferences and in other creative and educational gatherings, including to the MET Zoom Cafe, which was featured in their newsletter.

• Informally pitched the idea of talks / featured shows on the web monetization standard to the BC / Yukon Chapter of Travel Media Association of Canada and The Creative Farm on Fireside Chat. For the latter this was sparked by a discussion which I took part in on their live studio audience taping of the show this week on the future of music. You can listen to it here: https://firesidechat.com/ralphtalmont/01F5BVXCBWJ6QB1H3ZB6WHABXT We get into the web monetization standard and micropayments in the last 20-minutes of the show.

• Finally, I also wrote up a Case Study on the Sustainable Funding Model for the eBook 'Animals in the Great War' on StoryToGo.ca and shared a tease to my interview with Adam from gFam on What the Heck is Web Monetization, which you can watch below.

Communications and Marketing

We are publicly sharing our talks and experiments in web monetization, as well as content from the broader community focused on web monetization, in the following ways:

• on social media - predominantly Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; and

• in niche communities, including the Conference Forums, StoryToGo Community Group, UBC MET Community Group, and journalism and media communities we are a part of.

What’s Next?

As I mentioned above, our focus in the coming weeks will be on new interviews and case study creation for the Sustainable Funding Series, along with further adding web monetized social media option to BCST 1193 - Social Media Storytelling. Once that's done, we will be developing more open educational resources around web monetization, as we build towards the development of open courses on web monetization and sustainable funding.

In addition to this, we are building a catalogue of StoryToGo.ca of Web Monetization Resources, and as we've been invited to host live studio audience podcasts on Fireside Chat, we are contemplating the idea of such a podcast featuring members of the web monetization community and the various projects that we are all building. Currently in that space, I am part of Ralph Talmont's Social Cooking Club (which is just plain fun) and a regular guest on The Creative Farm. To learn more about that space, visit Ralph's channel as he's hosting three shows there.

What Community Support Would Benefit Your Project?

The Sustainable Funding Series is a series my team and I would love to extend beyond the Grant for the Web portion of the series. In that bent:

• Please let me know if you wish to partake in the Sustainable Funding Series by taking part in an interview on your project and having your interview and a case study on it shared to the StoryToGo.

As I continue to experiment with web monetization, are there:

• Other avenues web monetization and platforms that you recommend that my team and I experiment with?

• Examples of exemplary or creative web monetized projects that you think we should check out?

As I continue to add to BCST 1193 - Social Media Storytelling:

• What other web monetized social media platforms should I be adding, aside from gFam, mg.social, and Cinnamon (which have already been added)?

• Are there any web monetized podcasting platforms, as I have a number of students interested in podcast?

• What web monetized solutions would you suggest to gamers, as I often get gamers in my courses too?

As my team and I begin to build an online library of web monetized resources, we'd love your input.

• If you have or know of resources that should add to the library, please share a link to them in the comments below.

As we begin to build open educational courses around web monetization and sustainable funding, we'd love your input.

• What things do you think are important to include in an open course on web monetization?

• What things do you think are important to include in an open course on sustainable funding?

• Have you created or are you aware of resources on web monetization and / or sustainable funding that I should include in the open courses?

Finally, if you like the idea of a podcast featuring the web monetization community on Fireside Chat, and would like to be a part of it, either in the planning or as a guest on the show, an episode host, part of the live audience, or are just curious, please let me know.

Thanks so much for any ideas and resources you share, and for all the wonderful supportive people that we've been discovering in this web monetization community. We are loving being a part of this community and enjoying getting to know the people here and interesting work that everyone is up to.