Charging to use something and making money or other return off of that product can be two different things.
Case in point: I have never charged anyone to access our website, but it is at the same time my full time job and only source of income.
Podium Clarification (it is free, and always has been)
I just got back from East Van, where I had a chance to talk with a few folks from Cascadia for the first time since moving out here last year. There's one misconception about Podium I'd like to clear up:
I've never charged anyone to use Podium. Podium is free and always has been. If someone has told you it isn't free - well, they aren't me so how would they know?
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I have put 1000s of hours into the building and supporting of this service. This is a gigantic project, and it has required fairly sophisticated skills that I have been developing for more than a decade. It takes on the most complex problem that organizers face, and has helped more than 40 tourneys now... I'd be stupid not to try and get some return on this investment of my energy and time, just like a hardware store wouldn't give you free wood for boards and a framebuilder wouldn't give you a free bike with nothing in return.
To get a return, I've attempted to leverage the attention of fans interested in following the tournaments - not charge organizers or players. Folks like Fixcraft, Northern Standard, NAH, Fleet Velo and Jinxy have happily supported my efforts in exchange for exposure on the Podium follow page - some with polo gear, and some with cash. But honestly, it hasn't even come close to a reasonable ROI. I couldn't even buy a plane ticket to Worlds with all the money I've made from the entire history of Podium (since 2008). Yet I've never said no to a tournament, and most don't even have a sponsor.
When I went to my first polo tourney, the bracketing was done on a piece of cardboard with scribbles and scratched out names all over the place. I wrote some software when we held our first tourney in COMO, and short while later anyone could schedule a 60+ team tourney with just a few clicks, and fans could follow the bracket in real time anywhere in the world. This was not inevitable.
I shouldn't have to justify myself trying to make money off of my labor, but for some reason I feel forced to...
tldr: Podium has always been free, but I think it is worth a little more than that :)
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Also, thanks to those of you who shared kind words this weekend and in the past. Hearing that you enjoy Podium is truly encouraging! That's what keeps me working hard. (Can't wait for you to see the bench format stuff!)
There are some common examples of this business model: TV, Radio, Google, Facebook, A Million Other Websites (including lobp).
The key to this post for me is: Someone organizing a tournament didn't consider using Podium because they thought I charged people $100 to use it. That's not true. I've never asked a tourney organizer for money.
I try to make money using Podium, but I don't charge to use it. I'm sorry that I exist in a capitalist world, and that I need money to exchange for food, rent, and beer...
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(Brad's site is Urban Velo http://urbanvelo.org/)
I'm not telling people "I'm doing it for free." I'm telling people that "Podium is free" - because it is free to use and follow Podium. It's not free for an organization or company to have their logo on Podium.
It's called advertising. I'm not a fan of it myself, but in this situation, if there is any money flowing, I'd rather it be from someone who values the exposure I can offer them, not the volunteers who are working hard to run a tournament.
I'm doing this with the hope of turning it into a sustainable activity. I'd love to support myself by providing a helpful service to tourney organizers and polo fans that costs them nothing. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but I'm still working hard at it.
It didn't start this way. At first I just needed it myself. Then I realized other organizers would need it too. Then I realized fans would love to follow along in real time. Only then did I think I might be able to get something in return for my efforts without putting up a barrier to its use.
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I couldn't find your contact form, Daniel from NOLA, I'd be happy to continue talking with you over email...
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to keep you up to date on all my business plans and accounting details. I'll have my secretary forward you all the relevant documents.
I am not NAH. I am not on the board. I'm not a rep. And no, I have no agreement whatsoever this year with NAH. I'm still supporting any tourney that wants my support.
Thanks for stirring the pot, but this isn't about whatever fake controversy you created last year. This, as I and others have noted, is about a misconception that exists in Cascadia about how I run my service. I want tournament organizers to know that I don't charge them to use Podium. Go waste kevin's bandwidth in some other thread.
He's posting to clear up a misconception. I don't see what exactly you're taking issue with. Is the problem that he says he's doing it for free when he would appreciate donations? Well, you can go ahead and argue about what it means to do it for free and how donations factor into that equation, but that's completely tangential. He's being open about his intent which someone misrepresented. That's the point. Maybe you were talking about some other 'the point'.
Thank you for everything vince. I wish I could send you some cash, I definitely appreciate what you've done for polo.
I think you mean you're strapped for cash right now, but if it's not that, there's a donate link at the bottom of http://hardcourtpodium.com/
The last two NAH tourneys I've attended said something about donation for use of Podium. Or it may have been $ for NAH, or $ for NAH's use of Podium. Regardless, thanks for making the record clear and providing Podium to the community.
I'll take a large piece of cardboard over laptop-based organization any time. That's as an organizer or a participant. Old school has a lot of upsides, and the downsides go away with practice. Laptop/network organization requires a lot of time & money, and still only reaches people with smartphones + battery capacity.
Fair enough. High tech does have higher dependencies. I sure wouldn't want to do a 48 team swiss day by hand though:)
I'll take a large piece of cardboard over laptop-based organization any time.
F'it... Cardboard it is!
I'll take a good set of cones over a steel goal any day!
Make you an offer.
Next tourney in PDX, I'll keep a set of brackets on paper next to Vince running Podium. Let's see how it works out.
Paper is easier to read and understand than a cell phone.
be sure to bring your abacus for the differentials
give it a try, john henry, but the last guy i saw running swiss rounds by hand was totally slammed, and he was delaying rounds it was taking so long.
No chance. Podium knows all of the games for the next round as soon as the prior round is done, and has the on-deck (and generally the in-the-hole) posted in advance, so teams know what court they are on one to two games before they need to be ready. I can't tell you how many times at ESPI 7 I was looking for the teams to put on the court, and then when I looked back to the court, they were all already there and the game had started. Virtually no down-time.
By hand, you need to finish the whole round of later rounds before you can figure the games, and everyone has to wait with 4 courts empty while you work it out. No chance you could run the whole day as fast as podium.
Podium has been a huge help in helping tournament organizers put on successful events. What vince has done is really important work for the sport to grow. I really hope that organizers choose podium because it provides the best interface for people following tournaments. Challonge and Seattle Swiss both are much less elegant in the way that viewers get information.
Absolutely, this last weekend featured two regionals. I tried following both but gave up on Cascadia as the seattle swiss site was more challenging to navigate. I just checked in at the end for the results rather than watching it happen throughout the day.
I love Podium. We could not have run midwests last year without it and i'm always glued to the follow pages for every tournament.
I'd like to point out that Podium is basically freeware. For decades you've been able to download programs like Winamp or GIMP or 7-zip at no cost to the end-user. But if you like the product and care to donate then there's a button on every site. It's a basic business model that works. I love that Vince offers this for free, and if someone wants to throw him a few bucks or free gear, well then good for him, he deserves it. I think it speaks to his character that he puts the community first, not money.
and as a little blast from the past, here's what things used to look like (MW7 in como)...
that's awesome! I used Greek letters to label the losers bracket games
You were also a total mess the whole time. You couldn't even have fun or talk to anyone, and even when I'd try to engage you, you were unavailable.
Now, you could get drunk as fuck and watch nearly every game and you could still stay on top of everything, including the swiss.
A true testament to what you've accomplished with podium. Fuck the piggy-backers.
I love this photo so much! Podium has come so far and you should be proud as hell, Vince. Thanks for all your hard work over the past 3 years constantly improving Podium. You, Kev, NAH, and all the tourney organizers out there have helped our sport grow exponentially and for that I am forever grateful!
Awesome. The numbering system in that tourney had games like "epsilon vs omikron".
here's vince being a boss, same event.
Buchholz for lyf
This seems like as good a place as any to put this.
Not only is the software itself free to use, but Vince provided really great support before the tournament getting us up to speed, during the tournament when questions came up and after when we were finalizing everything.
Vince has gone way above and beyond with this software and we couldn't have done it this weekend without both him and Podium.
Thanks again.
"I've never charged anyone to use Podium. Podium is free and always has been."
however:
"I'd be stupid not to try and get some return on this investment of my energy and time..."
however again:
"To get a return,..." [which implies you've gotten paid or charged someone]
however again again:
"some with polo gear, and some with cash. But honestly, it hasn't even come close to a reasonable ROI." [so you got paid]
Dateline -- June 10, 2011
"The money I'm getting from NAH for this is way less than $2 an hour... I've been working on this for more than 2 years now https://github.com/binaryseed/podium"
-vince
"Shouldn't have said anything at all in this thread, but as one of the few people getting reimbursed for at least some of the time i've spent on this, I feel like I have to justify my efforts."
-vince
same semantics, 11 months later. cool product, just stop trying to justify it because you're not good at it.