I just stumbled upon PixelPass – a method of adding an income stream to your blog where your readers pay a small monthly fee to subscribe to your content. Subscriptions are never more than $2 per month and allow readers to access your whole blog.
I’m not sure that a system like this would work for most blogs – however in some of the following circumstances it could just work out:
- if you have a committed readership on a niche topic which isn’t available elsewhere for free
- if you have an incredibly high profile and are a ‘must read’ on your topic
- if you have a premium section to your blog that offers real value
I’m sure there will be other circumstances that might make a subscription revenue stream possible – but I wouldn’t recommend it in most cases.
found via SEO Scoop
I for one wouldn’t pay for information. In fact, when doing research for stories I hate even having to “register for free” like at most of the newspaper sites.
Darren, I’ve often toyed with this idea for a couple of sites I manage. I think the one factor that would turn me off is the potential loss traffic.
My own expectation is that content should be free for the most part. When I see a paid subscription kind of link, I instantly think “Do I really need this?” The answer is usually no and I walk away.
Are you doing a market analysis? I don’t think it would work, personally.
This makes a good repellant! :-P It’s hard enough getting people to come to my blog, let alone have them leave some feedback, or even return. Making the subscribe would be an autokill, blogicide. But maybe this works for others, those who are popular to start with?
I read the Times (London) free online. If they wanted to charge me to continue, I’d go out and buy the print edition. There’s just something wrong about paying for online content. I used to subscribe to the excellent iCop newsletter, which dealt with legal matters on the internet. Then it was converted into a “trade magazine” at $12 pa. I haven’t heard of it since.
IHO New internet users are more likely to sign-up to subscriptions, seasoned users are used to burrowing a little deeper and finding what they are looking for.
At what point is lost ad revenue surpassed by subscription revenue?
While I do agree with making as much money as humanly possible from our work, following a search link to a page that turns out to be a teaser for paid content always makes me nuts.
I echo everyones elses comments, a subscription based site/content is a turn off, even for the ‘must reads’. At the end of the day, the volume of competing sites is enough to deter most people for going down this route.
If you have a niche that could be exploited this way, charging will, in my mind, increase the likelyhood of a competitor being created and taking away your vistiors.
If you are in the financial business, nobody pays for stock market information, because you can get them for free.
Still, subscription based modells like reuters make oh how many million dollars?
If I am in a business where time is king, needing less time saves money and is therefore worth money.
For normal blogs I see the problem of userbased subscriptions with password protection.
A deal for “I just read three blogs” could be to pay $2 per month to get it delivered to their inbox, when something new is happening. That could be worth $2 to me, if I hate rss readers.
etc.
I might pay $2-$5 for really good content on a special blog, but as long as this does not fit into my reading habbits, I am likely not to subscribe to it -because of handling issues.
Targeted content that saves time makes sense here and is what I think people will pay for.
Unless your the Wall St. Journal, I doubt many people will be apt to pay for your blog/content without either samples or one heck of a reputation.
Years ago one of my favorite magazine editors left print media and entered the online subscription arena. autospeed was born and its still alive today using a then completely subscriptions and weekly content based system and now with an additional online shopping network.
These guys hit Darrens bullet points right on the top of the head.
However, you have to be committed to go this path from the uncertainity of what I saw at the time of launch.
Pay for access rss feed? Right?