Geek Alabama’s Christmas Message 2013 / Indiegogo Campaign Launch

By Nathan Young on December 25, 2013

View our Geek Alabama Christmas Message 2013 before you read the post!

2013, what a crazy year it has been! We have experienced incredible tragedy.

Great leaders leaving our Earth.

And incredible triumphs! I still can’t believe the final play from the 2013 Iron Bowl when Auburn came back to win!

2013 has been one interesting year. Some people really struggled and had a really hard time. Some people had a great year and are sad to see 2013 go. And for the rest, it’s been so-so. But one thing is for sure, if you work hard and stay committed to whatever you are doing, you are going to succeed! And you can prove to people that you can do it! Yes, I have a disability and a handicap, but I still work hard and stay committed! 2013 has been an incredible year for me and Geek Alabama with incredible growth!

For one, I released my visual resume. When I first released it, I thought it was only going to get a hundred views or so, but I am shocked! Over 2,700 people have viewed the visual resume so far and it has only been up for a month and a half! The folks from Slideshare are happy because my presentation is quickly becoming one of the top presentations on the website! Soon, I think my visual resume will be one the most viewed visual resumes on Slideshare. Thanks to all of you for viewing my resume! View it below!

2013 has been a great year for Geek Alabama! We have done numerous event coverage with photos and videos. We have done some of the best recipes, and family and friends have enjoyed the goodies from me! We have done some of the best Roadscapes with pictures and videos. We have done some of the best high school sports coverage with pictures and videos. We have done some of the best weather coverage with weather warnings and pictures and videos. We have done some of the best geeky / nerdy coverage, of course we do that since we are called Geek Alabama!

We have done some of the best music coverage with band interviews, concert footage, pictures, and videos. We have done some of the best good news story coverage with charities, special stories, and great people being featured! We have done some of the best reviews online including TV shows, movies, small businesses, gaming, and products! I believe the best thing we have done in 2013 is talking about crowdsourcing projects! We have helped launched the dreams of many people across the world because they have great crowdsourcing campaigns!

Geek Alabama is currently the second highest ranked media website in East Alabama / West Georgia. Geek Alabama is also rapidly becoming well-known across Alabama, Georgia, the southeast, America, and the world! If one person, who does this for free, can beat a paid team of writers and photographers from newspapers and TV stations, we are doing something right! It should not take a website paywall that many newspapers use to get your income. Newspapers would not have to start a paywall if they would write and cover stories that people want! Here are our Alexa rankings as of December 25th.

I now want to feature the three biggest things for Geek Alabama in 2013. The first has to be the numerous coverage from the Alabama Phoenix Festival. I did many posts, pictures, and videos. Yep, only one person did all of this, amazing right! Many people have contacted me thanking me for the coverage. We also did our first Dragon Con coverage this year. And yes, we will be doing Dragon Con next year! And of course we will do the 3rd annual Alabama Phoenix Festival next Summer! To see all the coverage from the Alabama Phoenix Festival, click the link! http://geekalabama.com/category/alabama-phoenix-festival/

The second biggest thing has to be the Toyota campaign! I got a chance to drive a brand new 2014 Toyota Corolla for a weekend with only 50 miles on it! It’s because my social media influence is one of the highest in the southeast and the country! Yes, I have many people who share my stuff on social media. I got a gift card and had several cool events paid in advance for one amazing weekend! To see the post, click the link and enjoy the video! http://geekalabama.com/2013/10/02/the-corolla-unexpecteverything-weekend-in-atlanta-georgia/

And the third thing has to be becoming a part of the Discovery Communications family. Since I do talk about the shows on the Discovery Networks and especially the Hub Network. The folks from the Hub Network now send us PR e-mails about some of their special events coming up. And the folks from Discovery have also noticed what we do and they sometimes share some things with me! Thank you Discovery Communications and Hub Network for letting us talking about your great shows! We will continue to talk about your special events so please keep sending us our stuff!

That brings up a good point, earlier this year we were contacted by Crybaby Media for potential TV show but nothing happened. Believe me, if you have followed Geek Alabama and what we do, I think we would make a great TV show. Maybe someone from Discovery Communications is reading this and thinks we would be a perfect fit for TV, e-mail me at [email protected]!

Even though I do this great stuff, there are some problems. One, my cap on my tooth has broken off and I don’t have the money to fix it. Two, my car is dead and I have to walk to go cover events. Sometimes I will walk several miles to go cover an event, I am that committed to Geek Alabama. And three, we have several advertisers that have contacted me for coming onto Geek Alabama. But since I am WordPress.com, which bans outside advertisers, I can not accept any, sorry. You think I would be out of luck, but I think I have come up with a great idea, a crowdsourcing campaign!

The Geek Alabama Fundraiser – Help Us Raise Money to Expand Geek Alabama is now live on Indiegogo! This fundraiser is to raise $20,000 in 30 days. It is a fixed campaign, so if we don’t raise the $20,000, we don’t get funded, and no rewards will be handed out. I am counting on the many people who we have helped getting their crowdsourcing campaigns successful to help us out. I am also counting on you the Geek Alabama readers for your help! If 20,000 people pledged $1, we would be successful! There are some great rewards you can choose from including books, t-shirts, poster, tote bag, other items, and chances to be featured on Geek Alabama! Here is what we are offering!

We are doing a crowdsourcing campaign because it’s simple, we are extremely money poor and without extra funding, we can not expand! One, our camera equipment is now several years old and the sensors are breaking down. Two, our computer equipment is breaking down. It takes us a couple of hours to process one video because of the slow computer. Geek Alabama wants to move to a self-hosted site so we can accept advertisers. Geek Alabama is currently hosted on WordPress.com where outside advertisers are banned. Funds would also go towards getting radio equipment so we can launch a podcast! The money would also go towards fixing our transportation (car), paying the fees, and paying for the rewards. Geek Alabama has worked with many companies including these below!

We have also been featured on these media sources.

I would like to thank everyone for reading Geek Alabama, seeing pictures from Geek Alabama, and watching our Geek Alabama videos! We have plenty of exciting things coming to Geek Alabama in 2014, but if we don’t reach this goal, we might not get to do them. And the people who were counting on us for promotion and coverage will be left without, we don’t want that to happen!

Thank you for reading this post, and to wrap up, here is a new road drawing, just for you! Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year from Geek Alabama! I hope 2014 will bring us some great stuff! View our Indiegogo campaign at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/geek-alabama-fundraiser-help-us-raise-money-to-expand-geek-alabama/x/3587818#share