After months of thought, I'm excited to bring some new things to Improve Photography today. Â I explain all of the reasons and details in this post, but here's the short version.
- Improve Photography was going to delete the Facebook groups, but no more! Â I'm updating this post to change that decision. Â The group just means too much to too many people.
- We are moving our podcasts to one simple feed. Â If you're subscribed to the Improve Photography Podcast, you'll now get two episodes per week. Â One episode will be the regular IP Podcast but “improved,” and the other will rotate between Photo Taco, Tripod, Latitude, and Portrait Session each week. Â I think you'll like this change.
I'll explain the changes and thoughts behind them below, but first I want to sincerely thank all of you for your support. Â Making changes like this is never easy, but I believe it's the right direction to go. Â Thank you to those who can see the reasons behind it and how this will actually be a very good thing for you.
Why the Podcasts Are Moving to One Feed
The Improve Photography Podcast is one of the very largest and longest running and highest rated photography podcasts out there. Â I'm so grateful for the many thousands of people who support it by downloading and listening to our episodes. Â Sometimes I'm not sure why you all put up with me.
Improve Photography has also launched a number of other podcasts, like Portrait Session, Tripod, Latitude, Photo Taco, and the late Thoughts on Photography. Â The shows have all been successful but the pace of publishing has also spread us quite thin. Â There are things I'd love to do on the Improve Photography Podcast which I simply don't have the resources to do with all the other things I do.
Right now, Improve Photography and Photo Taco publish each week, but all the other shows publish only 2-4 weeks in reality. Â On average we're getting out 2.7 podcasts per week right now and sometimes they are hurriedly put together since all of the hosts are busy. Â Also, when we launch a new show like Latitude, we have to go on a months-long campaign to get everyone to subscribe to the new feed.
The change here is a simple one, which I think will be very positive for listeners. Â From now on, podcasts will only publish on the main Improve Photography feed. Â We'll publish two shows a week. Â On Monday you'll get an episode of one of our podcasts which will rotate between Photo Taco, Tripod, Latitude, and Portrait Session. Â On Thursday you'll get an episode of Improve Photography.
Thus, Improve Photography will cease to be a podcast network and will instead be one really awesome podcast that publishes twice a week. Â Episodes of the other shows (Photo Taco, Latitude, Tripod, etc) will now be branded as such. Â For example, we'll say “This is a Photo Taco episode of Improve Photography” instead of the show being “on the Improve Photography network.” Â I believe this will make the branding more clear and succinct.
The podcasts will be better than they've ever been. Â The SLIGHTLY reduced publishing schedule (down from 2.7 podcasts per week to just 2 per week) will open up enough bandwidth to do some cool things. Â For example:
- The Improve Photography Hotline! Â The conversation about podcasts won't be on Facebook anymore, so it'll continue right on the show. Â If you disagree with anything we say on the podcasts, want to ask a question, or you just want to comment on something happening in the photography industry, you can call in and leave a message. Â A new segment of the Improve Photography Podcast will be “The Hotline” where we play YOUR thoughts and commentary. Â This will make the show more interactive and thought-provoking. Â The hotline is ready right now for your thoughts and calls. Â Here is how to send audio to the hotline–you can send your thoughts right now for next week's show.
- Fewer Ads. Â I'm also cutting down on the ads so we can have more time for the good stuff. Â Right now we do up to four ads per episode, and that is changing to a maximum of 3 ads per episode. Â With a target length of 45 minutes per episode, that means no more than 4% of the podcast is advertising. Â Compare that to network TV which has an average of 24% advertising time. Â The ads on Improve Photography have never turned a profit. Â They really only pay for the expenses incurred by the podcast such as paying my assistant to do the publishing, as well as giving the ad broker their cut and hosting, post-production software, etc.
- Better Research and Prep. Â I hate the feeling of hurriedly throwing together a podcast episode 20 minutes before recording. Â I feel a lot of responsibility to you all who trust me with your time. Â With this new schedule, I can now carve out a significant chunk of my day to prep for each podcast and ensure it's worthy of your download. Â Each show will be better produced and have better content. Â I'm setting a higher bar for what podcast episodes will be published.
- More Interviews with Industry Experts. Â I almost never do interviews on Improve Photography. Â We've only had 3 interviews in the last 75 episodes. Â Some interviews are boring. Â “I started photography back in the film days… yada yada yada…” Â But when interesting news stories are happening in the industry, I want to cover them deeply. Â For example, when a new camera is released, I want to be certain we have someone on who has been shooting the camera as a beta tester so you can spend your gear dollars well. Â Similarly, when I find people releasing a thought-provoking book on composition or photography as art or whatever, I'd like to have them on and pick their brains. Â With this new schedule, I can do that.
To be clear, all you need to do to get all of the updates to the podcasts is to be subscribed to the normal Improve Photography Podcast. Â Everything will come on that feed from now on.
Lastly, change is happening to Apple Podcasts which were announced last week at WWDC. Â It looks like Apple is finally bringing some features to podcasting which podcasters have wanted for many years. Â I'd like to make these changes now to take advantage of a medium which seem to be growing lately.
More Updates
Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 13), I'm going to the airport in Boise Idaho.  What country will I be photographing?  I have absolutely no idea.  I had my awesome assistant Jesse book me a plane ticket to a country without telling me where I'm going.  I'm going to show up to the airport, read the ticket, and get on the plane with absolutely zero prep.  Each day during the trip, I'll be posting a photo and you can all guess where I am.  After the trip, I'll be posting a series of 8 videos on the Improve Photography Youtube Channel–one for each day of the trip so you can watch my disasters (probably) in travel photography 🙂  You can follow the adventure by checking ImprovePhotography.com each day where I'll post the picture, and subscribing to the Improve Photography Youtube channel for the videos.
I have now spent over a year working on the Really Good Photo Spots app. Â I anticipated a release in March, then April, then May…. ugh… But it's ALMOST ready for launch. Â I'm doing the best I can, but this was a harder project than I anticipated. Â I sent out a beta copy to 46 testers last week and we discovered 3 last bugs that needed to be squashed. Â Today I sent out a release candidate to the testers and if there are no further bugs, we'll be ready for launch. Â Keep your fingers crossed!
Time to build an IP Mastodon server and grow your own social media LOL! Been through so many IP changes over the years and look forward to this incarnation of the community. Keep up the awesome work!!!
I don’t know what a Mastodon server is, but sounds great. I’m in. Thanks for the support 🙂
Jim,
Best of luck in your new direction for offering the members new ways for accessing and responding photography news and information. I enjoy all podcasts and feel your staff are very committed to giving us their best and have fun doing it. They are great at relating to all questions and connect with the audience.
Thank you Phil!
Hi Jim,
Awesome change and I think it will be so much more effective then having to deal with Facebook.
I’m a big fan of all of the podcasts, and never feel like I am getting enough.
Thanks for the open and honest discussion, Jim. I always appreciate how you lay out your reasons for doing what you do. I don’t always agree but I respect you very much for doing everything on the up and up.
It doesn’t matter much to me whether the podcasts are on separate feeds or one feed. I think your reasons for coalescing into one feed are good, and if people don’t want to listen to a particular podcast, it’s easy enough to skip over it.
And for Facebook? Good riddance.
I am 100% for open forums!
I understand your reasoning for leaving Facebook but feel it is a mistake. It is a matter of convenience for the IP community. FB is a centralized way to keep up with all your interests whether it is friends, family, a place you like to visit or a profession such as photography. I visit FB multiple times a day because it is a nice central hub to find out what is going on in my world. It is much less convenient to visit a bunch of websites on a daily basis. For example, I love the content Fstoppers provides but I don’t visit their website daily or even weekly.
Are you really complaining about having too many people in your Facebook groups? Sure it may allow occasional posts to fall through the cracks but most podcasts really value having a vibrant community. If you are having to spend too much time maintaining your group, the problem isn’t Facebook the problem is that you haven’t monetized your content enough to hire the help you need. Taking features and convenience away from the end user isn’t the answer.
Moving to a web based solution will cause you to lose members of your community. Not only that but the spam and robots will still be there in a web solution. Web based message boards are also notorious for getting hacked.
I believe you should keep the Facebook groups but focus more on converting active users to IP Plus members and trusting more users to help manage the community.
I came across your podcast /website close to 2 years ago when I was searching for ways to “improve my photography”. I look forward to listening to the podcasts each week and appreciate all of the work that you and the other hosts have put into the podcasts. I have learned a ton from your website, videos, articles and podcasts and just want to say thanks for all the hard work. Your website has definitely helped me become a better photographer. I certainly understand the valuable time lost running the FB groups. If there is one thing that we can’t get more of its time. I am looking forward to seeing how the changes work out. I hope you have a fantastic and safe trip . Enjoy.
THANK YOU for your support, Holly.
I only listened to the podcasts…so all of this sounds fine to me. FB sucks!! Good luck.
@Mike THANK YOU for the support. That means a lot to me.
Oh…and remember Jim. Haters gonna hate.
This is a big announcement Jim! If you were to make a forum here how would you control the spammers? Wouldn’t it get out of hand, even worse than facebook?
@Mark – Spam isn’t too bad here on the site. The difference is that I can curb the spam with code. For example, adding captcha, etc. On Facebook, I have no control.
Jim,
I want to thank you for not only what you contribute to the photography community on a regular basis, but this honest and thoughtful post that represents how genuine you are. You don’t owe such a detailed explanation to anyone, yet you choose to continually go above and beyond those that look to you for learning and mastering photography. Then again, you could just be totally fooling me during your podcast and in posts like these, but even if that were the case you are doing such a solid job of it that I don’t think I’d care.
Your podcast is the one I look forward to most each week, and I really like the new ideas/direction you plan to take Improve Photography. I just got back into photography a few months ago. After listening to your podcast for a couple weeks, I decided to return my Nikon dslr and give the Fuji X-T2 a shot. I’m certainly glad I trusted your opinion on the Fuji system, as I have never had so much fun with a camera before. I still trust and value your opinion even though you recently switched to Sony (grrr), but don’t stop talking about the great Fuji stuff on the site/podcast!
Anyway, just wanted to send a quick thank you message. It ended up being more rambling than I intended, but I felt your honest post warranted some honest positive feedback from someone who is really having fun getting back into photography due to your efforts. Enjoy your trip, wherever you end up. I look forward to reading about it soon.
-Connor
THANK YOU for such a kind message, Connor. I really appreciate that. I’m so glad to hear you’re finding value from it.
Jim, I’ve been on a mission to Mars for the past ten years and I’m wondering what is this Facebook you write about? Do people actually converse with others when they do something trivial like making a ham sandwich; or share personal information?
Let’s have a forum, learn how to converse about photography, and be nice to each other. It’s not that difficult.
Thanks for all your insights into photography.
Jake
Thank you earthling…. er… Jake 🙂 Appreciate the support.
Jim,
Was it the case that the post where not showing in the group also. I realized long ago the post to my wall did not represent what was out there. So I made it a practice to got to the group feed. I wondered if I was missing post this way?
Thanks and keep up the great work. Some of my podcast get piled up and I don’t get to them all the time. Yours is one I listen to as soon as it arrives.
@Scott – Yeah, if you go to the actual page, you can always see stuff, but few people end up doing that.
I’m trusting you that I’ll still be able to ask questions of the group!
Of course.
Really looking forward to all the new adventures!
For all those reading don’t forget to add IP to your home screen.
https://www.howtogeek.com/196087/how-to-add-websites-to-the-home-screen-on-any-smartphone-or-tablet/
Thank you, Josh!
Jim,
Thank you. I support this decision.
What I haven’t heard mentioned in the previous comments is that you’re a dad and have a family to support. I understand your concern about spending time away from things that aren’t making money, and those who criticize may have forgotten that you have a responsibility first and foremost to your family. That time spent checking FB is time not earning money and/or away from your family. I’m all for putting time back into dads’ pockets.
Pertaining to this website; I’m not sure if this has been suggested previously but I (and probably many others hobbyists) would love a critique forum where we could post photos and those so inclined could offer constructive criticism.
Thanks again for all you do.
@J Yoder – That was a really thoughtful thing to say. Thank you. To be perfectly candid, I had my 8 year old in tears tonight because I’m leaving on a photo trip tomorrow and I promised to spend some extra time with him today. Then I started getting so much pushback from a few vocal dissenters that I felt I needed to work all day. Facebook simply stands in the way of family too often. I hope this will be a positive change in that regard. Family first.
First off, I want to say THANK YOU, to Jim and all the amazing hosts of the IP podcasts. Three years ago I sold my small business, that I loved, but it was time to “restart” my life and the husband was ready to travel. I started listening to the podcasts while I was walking every day, and then riding my bike…and then hiking 8-10 miles a shot through this beautiful country of ours. I am a 60+ plus year old woman that has found a new passion in photography. That wakes up every day with new eyes and a belief that I can capture that small moment of time and share it with others. Did it happen because of IP, maybe not…but I can tell you this…THE TECHNICAL knowledge that I have gathered these last few years has most assuredly been because of what I have learned through IP. Do whatever you need to do Jim, I will follow. With a smile.
@Susan – Thank you so much for your support. That means a lot to me on a very difficult day.
Why not create a slack group?
@Darren – I’m just figuring out Slack right now. I started a small group with the podcast hosts and writers on the site so I can test the waters. It could be a good alternative. However, I’m pretty shy about trusting another platform with the IP community.
Jim and co.,
Big news and congrats on the changes! I wanted to say thank you for everything that y’all have done for the photography community. I was originally drawn to the podcast with you and dusty O because of the listener questions, so loving the hotline being featured :-). I have you to also thank for my fuji addiction which made me sell all my canon gear :-). One suggestion on the forums – I know there are a few out there that take advantage of mobile apps. I think the allure of FB and Instagram in addition to the platforms are the ease of use in mobile land, with easy apps, push notifications, etc … I think if you adopted a forum solution that was very mobile friendly, you would have a ton of engagement. Looking forward to a non-bot community 🙂
@Bob – Thank you for your support over the last few years. Your message was really nice to hear tonight after a tough day. I will definitely do my best to find something mobile friendly.
2 words – million thanks!