Patreon is a delight to scrape. Actually, scrapping is the wrong word for it – the frontend of Patreon is a react application that calls a number of very sensibly designed json end points. Call the same endpoints and you get delightfully clean json that exactly matches what gets displayed on the site.
A disclaimer – this is undocumented as far as I can tell – the publicly documented API (JS Implementation) is targeted at creators and provides access to privately information only visible to creators.
Inspired by the launch yesterday of the Patreon funding campaign for Movies with Mikey, a movie analysis YouTube channel, I’ve performed some rudimentary analysis of how Patreon donors fit into donation tiers.Movies with Mikey Patreon
A quick primer – Patreon allows creators to collect donations from supporters on an ongoing basis as opposed to a one-time engagement as with Kickstarter. Donations can be by month or by produced work. While various donation levels provide perks or recognition, Patreon tends to be more focused on “support” than perk compared to other funding platforms.
When Amazon made their move to create Twitch Prime (in what I called the best marketing move of all time), they had all the data – cross usage rates, demographics, subscription rates, etc. Now as we look from the outside, particularly as we’ve developed a number of alternate hypothesis, can we see and evaluate the success of the program?
As outsiders, while we don’t have direct access to the data, there are a number of point we can observe.
I proposed yesterday that Twitch Prime is an amazing move by Amazon to help turn streamers into salespeople for Amazon Prime. Clearly, people love the new program and perks – it is showing up all over twitch in channels I follow. For example –Twitch Prime Sign-up banner for The Attack
If you want to hear 10 minutes of Amazon love, here’s Day9 and friends discussing Twitch Prime and how great Amazon Prime is (beyond just for the twitch offerings…).
Amazon rolled out Twitch Prime at this year’s TwitchCon and I’m convinced that it is the most genius marketing move of all time. Lets walk through it.
Amazon bought Twitch, a video game streaming site for ~$970M in 2014. At the time, the purchase was justified as buying the platform and audience to help it compete in the future of online video consumption against Netflix, Hulu and more importantly, YouTube. At the time of the sale, Twitch had 55 million users, accounted for over 40% of all online live video, and had users spending over 100 minutes per visit on the site.
Five years ago I received my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from PMI. In the time since, I’ve regularly given advice to peers on how to get certified and what it takes to keep current. Over the next four posts I’ll be covering what worked for me, updating this post to serve as a table of contents.
DISCLAIMER: This is what worked for me – everyone learns differently and PMI keeps evolving their requirements and process.
Intel powers an Arduino for the first time with new ‘Galileo’ board – Now this is interesting – Intel is really pushing down the power curve… How the feds took down the Dread Pirate Roberts – Was looking for more info on what happened around the final months in the investigation – no new info here though… The ZTE Grand S And The Nubia 5 Come To The US, Will Be Available For Pre-Order Starting October 5th – I am looking for a new phone and these asian cheap phones are quite tempting.
Too many articles on the Silk Road bust, but it is fascinating…
General: This world is my weapon: PAR plays Planetary Annihilation – An interesting looking kickstarter I passed on – glad to see it is shaping up well. How to: Make DIY Barrel Aged Cocktails At Home (No Barrel Required…) – Aging your own spirits at home. This is solidly one of those “someday I’ll do this” items.
After a week where I had some trouble finding the time to do daily posts, I’ve automated part of the process so hopefully next week these will be more regular. This part 1 of what I read this week is mainly the gaming and computing news I’ve read. Articles are roughly in order of interest for easy skimming. Expect part 2 later today with more general articles.
General: First Look: Javascript Microcontrollers for web Developers – I think that javascript is the perfect first language to learn these days.
Life got in the way of updating, so here’s a slightly longer list of readings from the past several days. In no particular order…
In the Reign of the Gay Magical Elves – I’m a big fan of Bret Easton Ellis’ work though he does have a reputation for being a bit cantankerous. This is a long form article that provides a less pithy criticism of the role of homosexuality in modern popular culture in a structure that encourages discussion.