Let’s Crowd-Fund the Data Stories Podcast!

Enrico and Moritz, the two hosts of the only visualization podcast in the known universe, are trying to crowd-fund their work rather than rely on advertising. If we all chip in a few dollars or euros per show, this will be easy to accomplish.

You know those awkward breaks in the middle of the podcast where somebody gets cut off mid-sentence so Moritz can say, “Now is a great time to talk about our sponsor!”? Yeah, nobody likes those. It's up to you to make them go away, by paying for their costs so they don't have to run ads.

The way this works is through Patreon, a crowdfunding platform used by lots of webcomics and other online projects. In contrast to the things I know and support so far, this is not per month, but per episode. So if they’re lazy and don’t do anything, you never pay them. But whenever they produce a new episode, you pay them a few dollars.

This starts with as little as $3 for a Data Stories Affiliate, up to OMG! Can we hug you now? for $50. Clearly, nobody wants the latter, but I’ve signed up for the Data Stories Fellow ($10) level, even if I already am a superstar (the $20 level is called Data Stories Super Star).

There are more exciting details about this on their blog, or you can just head over to their Patreon page and give them your money there.