Launching Our Blue Media

Founders 

Our Blue Media is being founded by three members of the progressive media community: Jay! Tomlinson of Best of the Left (BestOfTheLeft.com), David Pakman of The David Pakman Show (DavidPakman.com) and Cenk Uygur with the whole team at The Young Turks Network (TheYoungTurks.com)

Our three shows have been on the air and online for a combined 22 years and through this experience we have come to know the infrastructure and logistics of the new media pretty well. And now, based on suggestions from our supporters and our own insights from working within the media, we have a proposal for a new peice of fundraising infrastructure that will cater to and help fund the progressive new media from the largest online news show in the world down to the smallest local blog.

What Our Blue Media can do for you

Highlights:

• As opposed to status quo payment processing tools, OBM is a progressive-minded company working specifically toward serving the needs of the progressive new media.

Highlights of benefits for those who support independent media outlets:

• Supporters will be able to send monthly donations to multiple media outlets through a single, consolidated payment. OBM will divide and deliver the funds accordingly. This makes it easier for a supporter to budget properly and simplifies the billing process. Think of it like a unified, a-la-carte cable bill for progressive media.
• Supporters will be able to manage, modify and cancel recurring donation plans in a single interface. Modifying recurring payments in this way is not possible with status quo tools.
• Supporters will benefit from discounted memberships offered by producers who offer promotions to those who purchase memberships with multiple outlets through OBM, something that is a logistical nightmare using status quo tools.

Highlights of producer benefits:

• Simply being a part of the OBM community will streamline the process of receiving funding from supporters paving the way for more donations.
• Producers will be able to to partner with other media outlets of their choice for cross promotion and to offer discounts to attract additional supporters. This will turbocharge individual media outlet’s ability to work together for mutual benefit.
• Customizable, auto-fired email notifications sent from the OBM system to supporters I.e. "Thanks for becoming a member...” or “Sorry to see you cancel, please consider supporting us again in the future.” This greatly reduces tedious, repetitive work for media producers.

Funding the launch

The initial round of web development to get the core functionality in place plus a bit of legal paperwork will cost $15,000. Anything raised beyond that would be put toward improving on that core functionality, implementing secondary features to enhance the site and paying the costs of regular upkeep. 

We see this as a project of, by and for the producers and supporters of the progressive media community. As such, we do not think of this as a profit-driven opportunity but rather the creation of a piece of the progressive commons for all to benefit from. This is exactly why we wish for the project to be funded by the community directly, to highlight and draw energy from that sense of community and shared engagement.

Perks

OurBlueMedia.com will have a dedicated sponsors page to permanently thank those who help fund it's launch. Have your name or company logo listed as a founding supporter.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you just can’t contribute that doesn’t mean you can’t help:

• Help get the word out and make some noise about this project.
• Use the Indiegogo share tools to encourage others to support this work!
• Join us at Facebook.com/OurBlueMedia Twitter.com/OurBlueMedia and donate your social media accounts at DonateYourAccount.com/OurBlueMedia