A New Look and New Features
Check it out!
We've just launched a brand new look for all of the channels on the The Conversations Network. Come by and take a look at your favorite.
The new sites use many of those Web 2.0 technologies you hear so much about (Ajax, widgets, etc.), which has allowed us to reduce the size of the pages, shorten the load times and at the same time increase the functionality. All the features are still there, although they may have been relocated, so you may have to snoop around to find them. Some of the great new and improved features can be found on our detail pages. Here's an example.
Look for:
Thanks for Your Support, But...
...we still need your help. March was a terrific month for donations and paid-member registrations, but these fell of rather sharply during April.
As a non-profit, we're entirely dependent upon dues and donations from our listeners to help pay the bills. We're hoping to bring in some tasteful advertisers in July, but until then ***we're losing money every day.***
If you want to see IT Conversations and Social Innovation Conversations continue to produce programs at the current rate, please support us. You can make a one-time donation of any amount or better yet, sign up as a paying member and receive additional benefits. It costs as little as US$2.50 per month. You'll be one of the important few people who help keep us "on the air" for you and for others around the world who can't afford to contribute.
For those in the U.S., The Conversations Network is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation and a section 501(c)(3) public charity under the Internal Revenue Code, contributions to which are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
"Share With a Friend" and Badges!
Even if you can't pitch in financially, you can still help The Conversations Network find new listeners. Ultimately this also helps pay our bills since the additional traffic will ultimately drive advertising dollars and some of those new listeners will become paying members.
How can you help us find new listeners? One way is to use our new Share With a Friend feature that you'll find on any of our detail pages.
Another way is to post one of our badges on your web page or blog. Phil Windley has published some for IT Conversations on his blog.
IT Conversations Badges
Check Your iTunes/Google Reader Subscriptions
About a month ago we had to change the URLs for some of our RSS feeds. Most of the "podcatcher" clients understood the change automatically and followed our redirection messages. But some did not. In particular it appears as though many people who subscribe using iTunes, Google Reader and a few other tools didn't "get the memo" and are therefore no longer receiving our programs automatically.
If you're an RSS user and you haven't been receiving any programs recently, check your podcatcher client and make sure you're subscribed to our new feeds.
We have feeds for all sorts of things. For example, to find the feed for all of IT Conversations, go to the channel's home page and click on the RSS/Subscribe menu option (eg, IT Conversations) To subscribe to an individual series such as Tech Nation, visit that series page and again click on the RSS/Subscribe option (eg, Tech Nation).
Our Board of Directors
Did you ever wonder who's setting the long-term strategy for The Conversations Network? That would be our superb Board of Directors. We just completed our annual board meeting, and we'll have some exciting plans for the future to share with you over the next few months. The Directors of The Conversations Network are:
Our Directors are backed up by an amazing Board of Advisors.
This free podcast is from our The Conversations Network Announcements series.