Econsultancy: Guilting customers to pay is not a sustainable business model
Tuesday, 9 March 2010, 21:18
"[D]epending on consumers' generosity is not providing value in a positive way. The success of a freemium model depends on actually offering something that people want to pay for. Not something they are guilted into doing."
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Jeff Jarvis’s cockeyed economics
Saturday, 23 January 2010, 19:19
Paul Carr defends the New York Times metered access plan with reference to economist Hal Varian's "versioning" of digital goods: "Different consumers may have radically different values for a particular information good, so techniques for differential pricing become very important … [One] particular aspect of differential pricing [is] known as quality discrimination or versioning … The point of versioning is to get the consumers to sort themselves into different groups according to their willingness to pay."
Wired Gadget Lab: In-App Sales and iTablet: The Killer Combo to Save Publishing?
Sunday, 18 October 2009, 10:11
"Apple on Thursday made a subtle-yet-major revision to its App Store policy, enabling extra content to be sold through free iPhone apps. It’s a move that immediately impacts the publishing industry … Picture a free magazine app that offers one sample issue and the ability to purchase future issues afterward. Or a newspaper app that only displays text articles with pictures, but paying a fee within the app unlocks an entire new digital experience packed with music and video."
paidContent:UK: Racingpost.com Approaching 10,000 Paying Subscribers
Tuesday, 22 September 2009, 10:25
"As the [Racing Post]‘s CEO Alan Byrne tells the Indie, the paper’s freemium model has a clear parallel with business newspapers: 'Rather like the FT, we are analysing data and focusing on a series of markets. In our case, they happen to be horse races, the Premiership or even The X Factor.""
Independent: Racing Post takes a punt on charging for online content
Tuesday, 22 September 2009, 09:47
"In July, Racing Post launched an enhanced online offering for members willing to pay £7.50 a month (equivalent to 25p a day). Some 3,000 signed up in the first week and membership is now approaching five figures. Some are prepared to pay more. Other packages include a premium tipping service for £9.50 a month, a package that offers live online racing from the satellite subscription channel Racing UK (£7.50) or an all buzzers and bells 'Ultimate Membership' for £199.95 a year. More than a quarter of subscribers have chosen this ultimate package."
Spiegel Online: Chris Anderson on the Economics of ‘Free’: ‘Maybe Media Will Be a Hobby Rather than a Job’
Thursday, 30 July 2009, 08:19
Chris Anderson: "I read lots of articles from mainstream media but I don't go to mainstream media directly to read it. It comes to me, which is really quite common these days. More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters. We're tuning out television news, we're tuning out newspapers. And we still hear about the important stuff, it's just that it's not like this drumbeat of bad news. It's news that matters."
Daily Finance: Journalism Online, would-be newspaper savior, gathers steam
Sunday, 19 July 2009, 21:45
"Sometime in the next two weeks, they plan to go public with the identities of their first affiliates. They've been pushing off the announcement for the past month — not because they've been having trouble lining up clients, they say, but because they've been adding new ones so fast, the list keeps evolving."
