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SVC is steadily growing, but still has too little money and may be able to be more attractive to the average not-space-smart person. How do we do that? How can we make SVC a staple of the space community that exists today and the space community of tomorrow? (and thanks to Ben and Cariann for all the awesome work so far)

While it is true that we don't have much cash, I don't think that is a detriment per say. It forces us to be creative with what we have and I think at times that makes a better show. The real question for me at least: how do we get in front of more people to help push positive change in the space industry?

I agree with that. I am pretty impressed by the number of views that the episodes get on Youtube (400-600+ each) at the moment, but that isn't a ton of people yet. What about maybe trying to do shows featuring some different space companies which could be seen by those companies partially as publicity? The idea would be that you talk with someone from the company on the show and they would probably publicize the interview to employees, who could become long-term viewers. I don't know if that would actually work, but it's an idea. It's not as effective with someone like Masten Space because the company is so small.

You could try to figure out what made the "Beer in Space" episode so popular on Youtube and try to build off of the same kind of concept. Not sure if people just like beer + space. I also hope that posting shows to Digg and Reddit will generate some interest. I linked to the last daily on Current and it got 6 votes on the "Space" reddit, which is not bad at all. On Digg you need more of a following (e.g. no votes for the last 3 episodes submitted). What about forming some kind of long term partnership that gets SVC recognition from groups like X-Prize, NSS, or the SFF? That could also help the less internet-connected/twitter-connected space geeks know that SpaceVidcast exists.

I strongly, highly suggest getting in contact with the vlogbrothers. Every video they make is ~4 minutes long, weekly or twice a week, and they get at least 50k views a month PER VIDEO! drop a line to them. Wouldn't hurt.

Part of it is that they are a very different style. It is possible for SVC to take on that rougher style and bring some comedy in the mix, but thus far we have gone more for infotainment. When it comes to vlogbrothers they are certainly entertaining but lacking in the education department. Maybe that's OK though. I could start a daily (say every Monday) that is just me doing a bit of a rant, but this type of thing on-camera isn't Cariann at all. They are also targeting techies which is a much, much, much larger market. My old Technology Evangelist podcast was a lot larger than SVC with a similar style mostly because the audience base is so much larger.

The reason the Beer is Space video was so high is because it was featured on YouTube. Any of our featured videos get very high views usually 50,000+ What we really need to figure out is how to get featured. I think we need to more entertaining in our dailies. The weeklies are driven by you guys, so they will be different each time.

Well i think your doing a good job as it is.

However like you said in your last cast they have been problems with people in the chat rooms. One good solution is when there is a busy time like Lcross Impact or a Shuttle Launch is to have the channel moderated. Allowing a few people to do comentary and to answer questions asked by PM's. This would make it more informative and structured.

Yeah mrhugy, it does get moderated and usually during launches there are up to 10 moderators working, but 10 people managing the comments of 5000-6000 is a task and a half.

Having people submit questions via PM to *maybe* 10 people has a high potential for a disastrous outcome. Once you managed to drill the fact that you need to double click the names of the people in red, then ask your question, then click back, you will have unleashed a never ending torrent of text to those moderators. 6,000 users trying to PM 10 people questions, and repeating them in CAPITALS sixty-four times because it wasn't answered immediately will become very stressful. They just won't want to wait, or be orderly about it. One solution is to maybe have a very simple WordPress plugin under the Ustream applet on the /live/ page that people can enter a question and submit it. It could reject duplicate questions (either altogether or from the same IP), and could restrict submissions from each IP address to a couple questions. Then someone can feed the mods the questions. (It wouldn't even need to be a WP plugin, a "simple script" and some embedding would do the trick). Anyways that would be how the solution for that can be handled. One way anyways.

As for more prominent exposure, I think going to the YouTube "celebrities" is an excellent idea, Jeph. There are many YouTubers who would probably be happy to help. Is SVC doing any online advertising? i.e. adCenter, Yahoo! Ads, etc? I think this came up during a live show a few weeks (or more) back, but what about advertising on your local community access, Ben? Ranting daily would actually be pretty sweet. It could be an excellent lead in for a that weeks series of dailies.

In a general answer to the thread title. SVC should never sacrifice quality over quantity, and in the limited time that I've had the privilege of being a SpaceVidCast member, I can say that I don't believe this will become a problem. Other than that.. I'll have to get back to ya