One thing that I have learned in running this blog (and starting the Metaverse Newscast show with Andrew William) is that getting eyeballs in front of your content is hard. And making some money from that work is even harder!
Now, I’m not discouraged by the fact that I am only one blog out of millions, and only one YouTube channel out of millions. I feel that I am well positioned, and I already have a nice little niche carved out for myself (social VR and virtual worlds). I am working in an area which will only gather more attention (and more eyeballs) as time goes on and consumer VR continues to roll out over the next few years. And organic growth, while slow, is best. It’s better than marketing schemes which bring in lukewarm or disinterested users, and have unintended consequences.
But I am somewhat discouraged by how uninventive I have been in, for example, offering more attractive, meaningful perks to my Patreon subscribers that will keep them engaged and supportive. I’ve been racking my brains and not coming up with much, and that really bothers me. I want to do better, and I want to give value for money! So I am going to need to do some more homework here, and learn from others.
Getting eyeballs in front of what I write here on the blog is also a struggle sometimes. Not the eyeballs of regular visitors; it’s attracting the eyeballs of newcomers who never knew that my blog existed before, and it’s doing the work to reach new audiences. Right now, I get between 300 and 5,000 blog viewers per day, which is wonderful, and I am grateful for the attention, but I want to take it to the next level if I can. Again, organic growth via word-of-mouth is probably best.
Maybe part of that is deciding what content to focus on, what to include and what to exclude. For example, should I be focusing less on worlds that are, so far, less popular (Sansar and High Fidelity), and more on worlds with higher levels of concurrent users (VRChat and Rec Room)? My Second Life blogposts have proven to be extremely popular; should I continue down that road and expand my coverage beyond news about steals, deals, and freebies in SL? So many questions to answer.
And putting together a regular YouTube show is a lot of work, most of which rests on my talented and hard-working producer, Andrew William, without whom I would be lost. I get what I think is the easier job: standing in front of the camera, coming up with and asking questions, and chatting with people. (At least, I think it’s easy. It comes naturally to me.)
I think it’s important to take some time, every now and then, to stop and figure out how you got to here, and where you plan to go from here. And I find myself feeling a little burned out by social VR and virtual worlds at the moment (which is hardly surprising, considering how many worlds I’ve covered and how many blogposts I’ve churned out in almost two years!). Again, perhaps I’ve spread myself a little too thin.
So I am taking a week (or two or three) of holidays from the blog. (Andrew and I are still working on upcoming shows for the Metaverse Newscast, and I expect that we will still release one episode per month, as before). I just feel the need to get outside now that it is summer in Canada, relax, and stop worrying about eyeballs for a bit.
It’s just a break; it’s not permanent! I promise, I’ll be back soon.
