Hi all:
I have read every post in this thread and will continue to do so. Thank
you Tim for initiating this discussion and for your constructive
critcism. I really appreciate all of the contributions (even the Free
Rhizome ones) and think many of the suggestions are good and
potentially viable.
I stand behind our foray into membership, but want to reassure everyone
that we are 1. Aware of the impact of Google, RSS and Blogs on how
people search, read, and interact online (and consequently, the
perception of Rhizome), and 2. We are working on projects that will
relieve the burden on individuals and make our content more accessible.
For example, through the Organizational Subscriptions program (
http://rhizome.org/info/org.php ) this year we will give away scores
and scores of Rhizome memberships to people who come to us via centers
or schools in poor and excluded communities (such as in Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia). I am developing more public programs that will
bring ArtBase works and Rhizome more generally into art spaces (not
just online).
To answer people who inquired about Free Fridays and all that... I
don't have Friday statistics available (and Francis is out of town),
but we are finding that membership and web traffic are on the increase
while subscriptions to email lists (except for the free, highly
editorial list Net Art News which has an explosive growth rate) grow
much more slowly. This suggests to me that more and more people are
using our web site and (obviously) signing up for membership. It may be
that the Raw, Rare, and Digest lists feel closed and small, but that in
fact people are reading Rhizome content a lot via the web site instead
of interacting over email. We found some general statistics that across
the Internet, email lists are withering because of spam and the
popularity of blogs. So one could argue that our spam-proof,
members-only lists are reasonable for our times.
I also wanted to mention that we do not receive any financial support
from the New Museum, though they do give us office space. Rhizome
raises its own monies, as always. It also seems relevant to note that
we received twice as much money this year from our dear Rhizome members
than from American Government Agencies. But back to the New Museum --
we do receive other kinds of important support from them -- they
believe in Rhizome's mission and staff. Their entire staff is really
supportive and interested in Rhizome, and we will be collaborating in
the future.
I hope this can be an ongoing conversation. I am in the difficult
position of representing an institution so I can't always move that
quickly, but I know more than anyone that the voices on RAW are
important and crucial to what I do and what Rhizome is.
Thanks, Rachel
p.s. I will be following this thread closely, but I wanted to add that
if anyone wants to chat in real time, on Thursday afternoons EST,
Rhizome staff is going to hold informal office hours on AIM or ICHAT.
Feel free to ping me at RachelFayeGreene or Francis at francisrhizome.