<h1 id="the-future-of-hpr">The Future of HPR</h1>
<p>In episode <a
href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr4109/index.html">hpr4109</a>
"The future of HPR" Knightwise challenged us to look at HPR from the
point of view of marketing to a business. His show was prompted by a
post we put out entitled <a
href="https://lists.hackerpublicradio.com/pipermail/hpr/2024-January/004741.html">Happy
new year - should we continue with HPR ?</a>, wherein we asked you to
vote on the future of HPR. The vote was a not so subtle redirect to our
upload page.</p>
<h1 id="tldrl">TL;D[R|L]</h1>
<p>This is likely to be a long show, so I'm adding the summary here.</p>
<h2 id="key-takeaways">Key Takeaways</h2>
<ol type="1">
<li>More subscribers does not mean more contributors.</li>
<li>In person contact is the best way to get new contributors.</li>
<li>Use social media to bring people <strong>to</strong> HPR and not
drive the discussions <strong>away</strong> from HPR.</li>
<li>Our interface point with the listening world is the RSS feed.</li>
<li>The Web site is the first point of contact for new
contributors.</li>
<li>We are losing contributors due to fear of being "guilty by
association".</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="feed-the-queue">Feed the queue</h3>
<ul>
<li>Send in one show a year.</li>
<li>Get one new host a year.</li>
<li>Don't rush in shows, use the reserve queue.</li>
<li>Follow the Scheduling Guidelines.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="look-for-hosts-at-every-opportunity">Look for Hosts at every
opportunity</h3>
<ul>
<li>Take every opportunity, work, school, hobbies, social media groups,
to ask people to send in a show.</li>
<li>Volunteer to host an HPR Booth at events, libraries, fairs, meetups,
etc.</li>
<li>Record interviews with interesting Projects.</li>
<li>Get in touch with older hosts and remind them how much you miss
their content.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="get-our-house-in-order">Get our house in order</h3>
<p>To be taken seriously as a project, we need to:</p>
<ol start="0" type="1">
<li>Finish the migration of the Back End.</li>
<li>Formalize our current implicit Code of Conduct.</li>
<li>Refresh the website, emphasizing our norms and values.</li>
<li>Enrich the RSS feeds to become more integrated on distribution
channels.</li>
<li>Start giving talks at conferences promoting HPR, or Projects
discussed on HPR.</li>
<li>Get HPR Published in Wikipedia, Industry, Tech and Hobby
Magazines.</li>
<li>Assign dedicated Janitors on Official and Unofficial Platforms.</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<h3 id="subscribers-versus-contributors">Subscribers versus
Contributors</h3>
<p>"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." <a
href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming">W._Edwards_Deming</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>All the numbers given in this episode are the most conservative
numbers we can give, as we have no financial incentive to do otherwise.
We can be confident in the numbers as the rate of subscriber growth
mirrors the growth of social media, and the growth of the Internet in
general.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There have been 2,446,084 Total unique subscribers since the project
began. That is at least 2.5 Million people that have not only heard
about HPR, but have also actively subscribed to an HPR feed.</p>
<p>There have been 359 hosts since the project began.</p>
<a href="eps/hpr4174/hpr4174/first-show-of-new-host-plotted-over-time-Versus-First-Show-of-New-Hosts.png">
<img src="eps/hpr4174/hpr4174/first-show-of-new-host-plotted-over-time-Versus-First-Show-of-New-Hosts-600x.png" alt="Subscribers increase, Hosts Decrease" />
</a>

<blockquote>
<p>The plots show that the number of monthly subscribers to HPR has
slowly increased from 40,000 to over 120,000 between 2010 and 2022. It
also shows for the same period the number of new hosts per month. The
period between 2010 and 2016 shows a lot of new hosts joining at a rate
of about three per month. This was when we were active at FLOSS Events.
Between 2016 and 2023 the rate of new hosts drops to one every two
months or so.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr />
<h3 id="links">Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/">Pepper and
Carrot</a></li>
</ul>
