Comments on: Blogs: No more free lunches? I’ll just eat elsewhere, thanks

By: On Paywalls, Search and the Risk of Irrelevance | CloudAve

On Paywalls, Search and the Risk of Irrelevance | CloudAve — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:00:24 +0000

[...] is the ability for that content to be found. Looking at the first point and, as Rommil Santiago pointed out in reaction to AccMan’s [...]

By: Rommil Santiago

Rommil Santiago — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 13:51:06 +0000

Obviously, you cannot make sweeping statements and there will always be exceptions to the rule. So you have to take each publication/blog on a case-by-case basis in order to determine whether it will succeed economically or not. With that said, what it all boils down to is the aggregate perception of users/readers.

In the end you can see a blog as business and as such it would have to evaluated against some general criteria in order to judge its market position. Is the product (or the blog post in this situation) rare? Is it of value to readers? Can other authors/bloggers imitate it (or just blatantly steal it unfortunately)? And is the blogger organized sufficiently in order to take advantage or the situation?

The imitation issue brings up other micro-economic concepts such as substitution and indifference. Do enough readers feel that there are no perfect or suitable substitutes for the content? Or can they replace it with other products on different demand curves (i.e., cheaper).

So @David, whether or not I subscribe to print is not really relevant other than to identify me as part of a segment that doesn’t value print very highly for reasons such as latency and environment (the latter I would say is a strong factor in the decline in print publication success). And with regard to the “internet is free” – again, not really the point – as it’s the content in question, not the medium.

@Benjamin – you’re right that many will pay for scarce quality resources, but will there be enough to sustain a business? Time will tell. There is also something to be said about “fanatics”. Those who will pay for something they love regardless of the price barriers. Again, is this segment big enough? Also while you will want to spend money to save time, there are others who will spend hours looking for online coupons and discounts.

@Ben – I have to agree in general, but there will always be exceptions.

@Dennis – In terms of time investment, you could go the other direction. Instead of paying a little for blog posts, I could turn this around and only base my business decisions on vetted journals and articles (which in all likelihood may go over better with decision makers, or better yet, bring in a consultant to look at my particular case). Paying much more for opinions that are based on referenced facts might be more prudent in the long run and might be the ultimate destination of this debate. It’s the sandwich idea, where you never want to be priced in the middle ground because the discount producers can always cut into your revenue (free content) and the top end segment (consumers of journals) never move down to inferior products such as blogs.

By: David Terrar

David Terrar — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 07:27:50 +0000

@Rommil – with every major mdeia outlet struggling with this problem, I’m surprized you’re just ignoring it. I happily subscribe to some hard copy magazines, do you? Somebody has to pay for good quality witing/good content so these kind of busines models will emerge, and there’ll be people like Benjamin and me who’ll consider it.

@Ben – like it – did you know the Internet is free too….

By: Transparency, information, knowledge and sustainability

Transparency, information, knowledge and sustainability — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:42:03 +0000

[...] or merely interested to see how it will pan out? I guess I must be doing something right, even if some think otherwise. Who knows?When I look at all the posturing that goes on in the US about paid for shilling, it is [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:54:57 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by dahowlett: Hilarious take on my new business model: http://bit.ly/diavbm...

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:54:13 +0000

So – you think Google knows everything? You don’t make the time investment comparison between messing about on Google and going straight to where the real action is happening? But I must admit – this article made me giggle. One to come back to as reference for muppetry.

By: Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:38:41 +0000

Interesting perspective Rommil and I tend to agree that a freemium model for blogging is about as viable as a freemium model for web apps… destined to failure….

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:12:22 +0000

Interesting – so it’s the friction of the transaction, rather than the cost? That wrings true even for some bigger business decisions. But what if more and more of the value content moves behind pay walls, and Google is left with the SEO-driven dross? This seems to be the game theory that some of the big media players are running with. Or, looking at it another way, if content becomes free (abundance), surely people will pay for scarcity (quality editorial)? If someone had a low-friction transaction process, I’d happily pay to not spend an hour searching through Google results and duff pages to find the information I need. Freeing up valuable time to spend fixing the toilet, of course.