2019 Channel(s) Update (Patreon)

Last year was a pretty interesting and eventful year. I got laid off from my job and produced two of the most popular videos for the channel to date.

During my time off, I did some thinking about the channel and where I see it going over the next year or two.

New Channel, New Content

You may have noticed that I've been promoting my other channel, EgeePlays, a lot more recently. I've decided to spin off all of the gaming-related content from the Egee channel, to EgeePlays. That being said, the Egee channel will be a Linux & Tech focused channel.

The reason for this is because the vast majority of my "watch-time" (a YouTube metric) comes from people watching my more technical videos. And folks that do watch the gaming videos tend to spend more time watching and average viewers but the number of viewers is comparatively low.

The game reviews I did in December did really well and that's what gave me the idea of moving that content to a channel that is focused on that content.

Sponsored Content

I've been getting requests lately to do sponsored videos. I talked about my Linode sponsorship in a previous post here but basically, I think sponsorships from reputable companies are good for the Linux community as a whole.

The Linux YouTube community is relatively small when compared to other YT communities and the fact that we're being recognized as having a large enough audience where sponsorships are viable is a pretty big deal.

Linode was a great fit for my channel and yielded some great videos on very technical topics. Hopefully we'll see more opportunities like that this year.

Live Streaming

I've been trying to make live streaming a more regular thing lately. I started out streaming on YouTube to the EgeePlays channel but I've been having technical and quality issues with it lately so I've switched back to Twitch.

At this point I'm still trying to figure out what to stream. I'm not thinking too hard about it but I do plan to stream much more this year. The Twitch channel is aptly called EgeePlays.

Patreon or Ko-fi

Ever heard of Ko-fi? Ko-fi is yet another way to support content creators. It's somewhat of a cross between Patreon and Flattr with more emphasis on social networking and irregular donations (opposed to say, subscriptions).

I like Ko-fi alot in large part due to their amazing website and layout. The creator dashboard is amazing too. In my opinion, it's a better platform than Patreon is in nearly every regard.

Patreon is really good for people who depend on monthly subscribers. Ko-fi is targeted more for one-time donations in the form of Ko-fi (coffee's). I prefer prefer that model and honestly I find the whole subscription thing a bit awkward. 

That being said, I am seriously considering switching over to Ko-fi for community support. Basically, if I can get enough traffic on Ko-fi, I'll probably switch over to that. Otherwise, I'll stay here on Patreon.

So yeah, big blog post here. I'd blog more but honestly Patreon's blog/post thing is really bad, especially when trying to use it after posting an article on Medium.