Short version: Members make FlowingData possible, and it’s a lot easier to support through membership now. There are two new plans: Deviation and the upgraded Outlier. The Outlier plan is for those who want to support the site more, and as a bonus, you get a signed copy of Visualize This (2nd ed.).
Help me keep this site running forever, and get access to courses, tutorials, and the members-only newsletter. Fun data things are in the queue.
Longer version: FlowingData is 17 years old and has been almost entirely supported by paid memberships for the past 12. An eternity in internet years. Thanks to you all.
Because of memberships, I explored curiosities through data, wrote hundreds of tutorials, created visualization courses, and highlighted other people’s projects through the blog and newsletters every day since starting this site.
About 7,500 posts altogether exist as a public resource for classrooms, data professionals, and anyone interested in data.
Memberships also cover running costs such as: hosting, email services, backups, storage, course software, server maintenance, and security.
Migrating Membership Software
When FlowingData membership started more than a decade ago, I used a plugin that let people support through PayPal. I was nervous before the announcement. Things like Patreon and Substack didn’t fully exist and I had no idea how it would go.
It went well, save a few hiccups. To my relief, many patient people became members that first year. It felt like FlowingData could stick around, because I didn’t have to rely on sponsors that were shifting their budgets to big companies. You all gave me the confidence one year later to work on FlowingData full-time.
The membership software I used was just good enough. But occasional snags meant I had to update accounts manually, and it wasn’t always straightforward for members to update their information. This turns out to be important as credit cards expire, jobs change, or accounts shift over several years.
This year, there were more snags than usual. Too many.
So I migrated to Memberful last month. It costs more than my previous solution, but it’s easier for you to join, and current members can update their information hassle-free. That seems like a win.
New Plans, Easier to Adjust
There are now two new plans you can choose from:
- Deviation — Access courses, tutorials, and the weekly newsletter.
- Outlier — All the above, plus annual merch.
Both plans provide unlimited access to courses, tutorials, guides, and newsletters. Join monthly or yearly.
The Deviation plan is effectively the same as original memberships. I just didn’t have a name for it.
Those who support more as Outliers also get free merch each year. This year is a signed copy of Visualize This. I expect to mail all copies by the end of this month (October 2024). So if you’d like to take advantage, please try to do that sooner.
Group Memberships
Group membership is also now available for the teams who work with data and need to communicate findings to others. There’s a discount for teams of five or more. This used to be a manual process, but now it’s a lot easier.
Gift Memberships
You can give gift memberships to the special data points in your life. Again, gifting memberships is a lot easier now. You can leave a message for the recipient, and you can schedule the delivery date.
Gift a one-time Deviation membership or an Outlier membership.
Goals, Months to Forever
I have many items on the to-do list centered around providing a more complete set of guides for the process of data analysis through visualization. I touched on all the parts over the years, but there is always more to learn and places to improve.
As analysis shifts towards a bigger and darker black box, understanding data grows more important. We have to learn how to scrutinize results, analyze data ourselves, and communicate what we find in a way that non-data folks can also see what’s happening. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.
In the near-term, I’m updating current tutorials to make sure they’re still useful. When you write code over 17 years, some guides inevitably become outdated or you learn better ways to do things. I just updated the Maps in R course. Several tutorials got a refresh.
New tutorials and courses will lean more heavily into data processing, analysis, and designing things for humans — the areas that are less straightforward but make visualization meaningful. Of course, there will be lots of charts. I hope you’ll join in on the fun.
Long-term, my goal for FlowingData is to do this until I can’t data anymore (unless the AI bots take over, in which case we’ll have bigger things to consider). Then after that, I hope FlowingData can continue to exist and avoid the visualization graveyard of 404 errors. Most of the sites I first followed when I got into this work are just gone, which stinks.
Most of FlowingData is publicly available, such as the main feed and almost four hundred of my own data projects. The examples are used in classrooms. The site seems to help people appreciate and examine data more closely in their lives. Sometimes I’ll get a note from someone who tells me that they found their career trajectory after finding FlowingData. A warm feeling grabs my chest and I smell onions for some reason.
Members past and present made this possible. The site does not exist otherwise. Thank you.
To this end, become a member to help me keep this going for another 17 years. If you’re a past member who wants to support, you can renew here. Thanks for considering. Thanks for reading. We’ll have fun making charts in the process.
