Value for Value News Journalism Discussion Using Entirely Bitcoin \ stacker news ~bitcoin

Value for Value News Journalism Discussion Using Entirely Bitcoin

12.1k sats \ 25k boost \ 49 comments \ @thebitcoinbugle 12 Feb bitcoin

zaps forwarded to @DarthCoin (25%) @GingerBStiffin (25%) @rodpalmer (25%)

So the Bugle has been live for over a year, with a focus on being entirely community funded instead of taking gay sponsorship money which influences our journalism, as well as sets up our readers for rug pulls. It's been a really interesting experiment so far, and I'm convinced that there is a path forward to have a full fledged media company operate this way.

There are a few ways we generate money:

direct donations on our site
direct donations via Geyser
Selling merchandise in person (Haven't been very consistent at this)
Allowing people to point hashrate at our mining pool account
Nostr Zaps
Allowing readers to tip each article's author via LNURL at the bottom of each article
Selling black market cigarettes at Bitcoin conferences

There are a few ways we could expand ways to earn sats from readers:

Premium subscriptions
Gamefy what articles are written next
Migrate from ghost to a custom site with lightning payments integrated, maybe built on nostr
Actually sell merchandise seriously
Physical book sales
etc there's probably a lot of ways we expand here
Fountain podcasting stuff

Stacker has been a pretty consistent way to generate sats. When I post articles on here, I forward sats to the authors who wrote the content. In the future, I could see splitting percentages making more sense but I don't pay anyone who contributes so until that changes, I'll just give 100% of tips to authors. The lightning network is so slick for stuff like this.

I think if you have a compelling mission, you can solicit donations. People have really gone out there way not only to send us sats, but also promote our content on their podcasts, at conferences, and word of mouth.

The Bugle's mission is to do a few things:

Push back against and criticize the influencer circle jerk in Bitcoin related communities
Promote freedom and human dignity
Educate people on why smoking is good for you
Earn Bitcoin in the process
Open source new ways individuals can earn sats
Be the best damn journalists in the business, free of corporate overlords
Promote new communication channels and communities that further our goals.

Anyways, just thought I would do a post here and see what happens. I'm really curious to see what ideas the community has on this topic.

view all related items

377 sats \ 3 replies \ @Atreus 12 Feb

The way forward is for us to support one another within our own networked community, just as @DarthCoin says.

V4V is a method that works, and it grows exponentially as our own network grows.

And the sats we make today only get more valuable. Our old Stacker News posts increase in value 🆙 with time. It’s not always obvious on the day you post it, but each Bitcoin Bugle article posted on SN is infinitely valuable because the value of even a modest amount of sats in Feb 2024 will just go up and up.

🎺 🎺 🎺

247 sats \ 1 reply \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Yeah it's pretty wild to watch my shitposting value go up

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Atreus 12 Feb

Exactly. In fact, I just inspired myself to up my own shitposting even more. I'm sure Koob won't mind 😆

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @026180d3a3 13 Feb

Ideally, sure. The trouble will be gatekeepers.

451 sats \ 8 replies \ @Design_r 12 Feb

Are you self-hosting Ghost? on the same node you run your node?

My advice:

Drop Ghost and instal/run WordPress (and increase SEO for your site)
Make a nice and simpler theme that give identity to your publication, ideally a logo too
Build an ecommerce to sell your merch online
Integrate LNbits or BTCpayServer and get sats for yoru merch
Integrate TwentyUno widget at the end of your articles (it will make the zapping easier)
Crosspost from WP to nostr
Blindly embrace V4V

Now invest your time to do it or DM me on nostr if you need help for points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

I think there's a lot of options. I hate wordpress but might have to go that route. Definitely will take this all into consider. Will take some time to reflect on this.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Design_r 12 Feb

Why do you hate WP? it does the job and there's much more flexibility and customization enabled than Ghost. I do not agree with this comparison marketing page as there are plenty of alternative plugins that cost zero to enable those functionalities

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

I'll look into it. Might be the best option. I would prefer to have something cool and custom like Ungovernable Misfits has though which I'm pretty sure is not wordpress

31 sats \ 4 replies \ @Design_r 12 Feb

Ungovernable Misfits

They actually use WP!

you'll be surprised to see what's possible with WordPress. There's a reason why it's the CMS behind the (growing) 63.5% of the CMS marketshare

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

I just figured that out too lol. Yeah Wordpress may be the way to go

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 12 Feb

I'm also a big WP fan. Little learning curve...then awesomeness.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @026180d3a3 13 Feb

It is a bit of a security nightmare.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 13 Feb

Yeah that's the big downside. Will have to use minimal plug ins and get people who are web literate to audit the site.

reply on another page

372 sats \ 11 replies \ @k00b 12 Feb

Gamefy what articles are written next

I like this idea. I could see it being competitive. People spend to force your hand to write something. They could spend a lot of money to get a takedown article of their favorite or least favorite bitcoin celeb, etc.

It reminds of the photoshop request guy that takes requests super literally. Or, apps like Cameo but that might be too personal/specific to the requester.

10 sats \ 10 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Guy Swann has done this on his site for which articles he will read next and it's super cool. I'm not smart enough to build this

678 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin fwd 12 Feb

@supertestnet built a plugin for Guy's webpage. https://github.com/supertestnet/articlevotes

173 sats \ 1 reply \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin fwd 12 Feb

hahaha that's true. maybe @supertestnet could build one for TBB too.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Dope I'll take a look

20 sats \ 5 replies \ @k00b 12 Feb

You could run it in a SN comment thread if you're crafty, but it might suck too much.

@jarednxx of @getmash did a voting thing once. I'm not sure what the status is now. That was a year ago and they might've moved on.

218 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b 12 Feb

Mash might have a lot of stuff in this lane too that might be a great fit for the bugle

14 sats \ 2 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

What's Mash?

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin fwd 12 Feb

https://mash.com/

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Dope I'll take a look

13 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin fwd 12 Feb

yes I think it fits well.

235 sats \ 1 reply \ @benthecarman 12 Feb

Keep it up, you're doing great

110 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Well thanks Ben. Glad to be your exclusive news source!

160 sats \ 0 replies \ @Fabs 13 Feb

"gay sponsorship money"... I like you.

530 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin fwd 12 Feb

TBB is the most underrated news publication and I love it at first sight. Why? Because I like good humor and satire. My life meta is "smile tomorrow will be worse" so TBB fits exactly into this.

I don't know why did you put me in FW zaps, I wrote just a single "guest" article for TBB, long time ago and sometimes I give you tips for the next articles. But I think I do not deserve the honor to be mentioned as TBB contributor. It's an honor anyways and I humble accept it.

Keep it going! TBB have great future in Bitcoinlandia!

325 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 12 Feb

Appreciate your free advice

10 sats \ 3 replies \ @theswissroadtocrypto 18 Feb

what was the point of this 'Educate people on why smoking is good for you' above, was it to check if we were actually reading your post?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 18 Feb

Smoking is good for you. It's a fact.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @theswissroadtocrypto 19 Feb

smoking what? nicotine?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebitcoinbugle OP 19 Feb

Marlboro Reds to be particular.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @jarednxx 20 Feb

Hey @thebitcoinbugle – jared here from Mash (mash.com). Keen to get time to see how we can help. Have a lot of things launched that are always on (see tftc.io, cryptoslate.com), some that are more campaign style (e.g., bitcoin reward giveaways) and a bunch more coming in the pipeline shortly that we're testing with a bunch more partner sites. Just pinged on twitter.