Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 12 Mar 2001

Note: the comments below are the unedited submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.
 

From: spiro harvey
For : Right Of Reply (for publication)
Subj: making money from online publishing

as you mention, it's hard to get people to fork over money
for an online publication.

I think what we need to do is figure out WHY people won't
fork over for an online mag as opposed to a hardcopy and
work on alleviating those fears first.

firstly, they don't have any material goods for their
money. will the website charge them to review the
information 12 months down the track? a magazine allows you
to keep it as long as you please and even share it with
your friends. once you cancel your subscription, you lose
everything, including what you've paid for unless you
downloaded it to your hard drive first. not people's first
instinct for news sites..

people already pay for net access. why should they pay for
information provided on the web? I mean, come on, it's
unfair to charge me for blank paper for my printer as well
as the ink and the power to run the thing too, isn't it?

information should be free! and as harlan ellison pointed
out recently, creative writing (which sometimes journalism
can fall into) isn't information. it's more like art. it's
the bread and butter of the author.

I think the spreading of Linux (which I'm all for
incidentally) isn't helping things. The argument of free
software is being misunderstood. where in fact it means
free source code, people take it as meaning free from cost.

sadly, this filters through and people think that they
should be getting their music free, their books free, their
news free, etc. I'm pretty sure that the only industry
making a noticable profit from subscription based services
is the porn industry.

of course there are exceptions to every rule - some people
refuse to pay for porn when it comes so readily on the web
and usenet, and some people pay for other services such as
newswires, stock reports, etc.

subscription based services attempted to lure people in by
offering a certain amount free and then charging small
amount for additional info. there was an NZ political news
page I visited a few years ago which was like this (I
forgot what it's called now). a good idea, but when
implemented needs to be hassle free.

which brings me to another problem. a lot of people find it
a hassle (aside from the obvious paranoia of having your CC
details stolen) to enter their details for every single
site...

so much complication. we live in an age where The Average
User can't even be bothered entering in a password, yet
they expect everything to still function perfectly and more
importantly, be 150% secure.

they also forget that it's just as likely that some
employee at the shoe shop they just used their credit card
at (a legacy shop, not online) is just as likely to steal
their details, or they'll screw up the eftpos receipt which
has the full card number and expiry date on and put it in
the bin (and can sometimes have the customers name written
on later for reference).. a dumpster diver can be pretty
resourceful when he wants to be.

things that will make life easier for us will be the
acceptance of micropayments. a universal system like credit
cards which uses a login id and password, then this
information can be cross checked with your bank. of course,
people will have to stop using IIS as their webservers and
will have to implement some pretty strong encryption, but
it's all possible using todays technology.

disposable credit card numbers are being introduced with
Amex, Diners and MNBA (MBNA?) offering them. once people
see they work, banks and other cards will follow.

then over time, people will accept that they can safely
make small payments without incurring relatively large fees
for doing so and will start paying for published items
online.

note that I'm completely ignoring the argument of online
music and video that can't be copied, because everything
can be copied. unless companies start realising that the
best way to currently distribute data is to distribute with
people's public PGP keys so that only the recipient can
read/view/listen to it, then things will happen slower.

of course, the data will just be decrypted and passed on,
but I'm sure someone intelligent can find a way to only
have the data decrypted in a manner which destroys it once
it's out of it's encrypted environment.

I better stop because this is getting long, but I think you
understand where I see the future in online publishing.

encryption software needs to be taken to the next step.




From: bede
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: website stuff

I would have to say your not paying enough for web hosting
if you really wantend overseas visitors id have to suggest
moving it to a us host,
other wise if its nz readers only that would be fine,

although most nz webhosters are pretty crappy for
the features the provide,

I would suggest moving your info to a database,
so it can be searched and or accessed by a number of
diffrent means,
it would also facilatate the ability to add data from any
where in the world with out fidling with a ftp program.
other authors could also be added with little extra effort,
and your comments that apear in the comments box sould be
propperly tagged to the apropriate article, (see a zdnet
article for an example)

content could also be placed in a forum like area to create
a sense of "comunity" and make the site more sticky

having a forum is also great for scanning out new ideas for
articles as well as a means of performing research

I would estimate a rough figure of up to $15 000 for some of
the features above, I wouldnt pay more than $18 g all up
plus you uhm need some nice graphics =)


Money Raising:
your daily articles sold and distributed to other websites /
magazines

you may be able to earn soem sizeable money (perhaps)
some one else who writes articles would have to say how much
they would make.

say resell articles to hearld $1000 a week for 5 articles?
or one really good one a week?




From: Daniel
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Profit from Content

As a webmaster for a site generating over 3 million page
views a month it's become a tight time, and serving pages
is becoming more expensive than what they earn.

With a current CPM earning of US$0.20 - $0.50 it's quite
easy to see that our monthly earnings from 468x60 banners
is very low.

We've started thinking more laterally, and rather than
relying on ad revenue we've looked to sell promotional
services that encompass a variety of online marketing
methods to the companies who's target market we have
captured. And this is working very well for everyone. The
companies get banners, pop-ups, mailing list ads, and
access to user information who enter prize giveaways that
they sponsor etc.

Obviously, selling a subscription to a website is
unrealistic. But it will work if you offer something more
for what they pay. More exclusive content, something you
can send out to them of value that they can hold in their
hand. People pay for magazines because it's something
physical they take ownership of. It's much like paying for
software or music and then downloading it. Most people want
the physical product in their hand.

Ultimately treating an online business like a "real-world"
one will determine success. Of course, 90% of businesses
fail in the first year, and another 5% fail in the first 5
years, so to say that Internet businesses are failing
because the Internet is so bad at providing returns is
fairly naive. Offline businesses are failing everyday and
probably in greater numbers.

The online ad industry will work itself out and once all
the no-business-sense players have been weeded out, cpm
levels will no doubt reach a valuable level again.




From: grizzz
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Subscriptions for Aardvark

If you were to suggest a yearly subscription of around $12 -
 $15 a year and made it easy enough to pay, I would pay.
This is one website that is worth paying for




From: Charlie
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Online publishing profits,

I think if I knew how to make a decent profit from this I'd
make all the money first, then tell everyone else.




From: Brian Corbin
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Internet news for profit

Hmmm... Its a tough one.
My angle on this is really looking at how i use your site
and a few others like it. Although i love the work you do i
have a deep adversion to shelling out dollars that were
very hard earned.
The thing I see as an issue with news content is that what
appeals to some does not to others. Also some weeks 3-4days
of News within Aardvark does not interest me, whereas other
days there can be multiple items which i really get excited
over.
This to me is a big part of the problem with a subscription
based model. Why shold i pay for the dull days?
The other thing i have noticed is that most online news
sites only scratch the surface of a news item. Sometimes
there is an item about a topic which i had no idea existed
(The great thing about the web!). This topic really gets my
interest going, only to find the article is just an update
or a brief rundown of the topic. Then i have to spend hours
of my time (valued at $$$per hour to me) researching
digging and generally dredging info about the topic out of
the web (i think we all know how bad this can be some days).
So putting these together i wonder about a service which
allows you to view the (eg) Aardvark news items, then log
in with a username and pay a fee per item. In the pay
section are more thourghly researched discussions. Many
online links, background, history, a more complete picture.
That way you may get a monthly bill based on which articles
you have gotten more info on. You are then only paying for
that which is of interest for you.
Some weeks you may spend $20-30, some weeks none at all.
But if you factor in the cost of your loss of productive
time while researching it yourself its money i personally
am happier to part with.
There are issues with this of course. Some news items may
not lend well to more research as they may be brief or have
no history. But im sure most things have a similar concept
which would provide an informative comparison about
something which you have picked as interest to you.




From: Rob K
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Make Money @ Aardvark

Bruce:  Use the Bill Clinton (former US President) model
for making money.  Charge everyone with a computer an
additional "possession of computer" tax and split it among
those sites that need the operating capital.  Of course,
you'll have to surrender your site content to the
government, but hey, it's about making money, right? haha

Rob K
Baton Rouge, LA
(This is a joke - Just in case anybody out there really
thinks I support government control of the Internet, they
need to go through Bruce's archives of email from me and
they'll see...)




From: Grant
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Making money

I thought the suggestion that somebody else made about
selling to print media was good. Even though I read most of
my news online, I still buy the odd mag & newspaper. The
print media people certainly seem have enough dosh to pay
for your costs with their lunch money.
The option to syndicate your articles to other web-sites is
good as well - after all time to produce the column is a
sunk cost so any re-sales to another site (assuming they
have different readership) would be profitable. Only
probably is that the NZ/IT focus of you site would exclude
most other potential customers.

The subscription model won't work while there is so much
supply vs demand - if I had to pay a charge I thought was
excessive (say $20+ per year) to read Aardvark I would
simply drop Aardvark from my list of daily reads & read the
reg, slashdot etc more.

Advertising? I almost never click-thru banners, often have
images switched of (thanks to Telecom DSL traffic charges -
just like the good old days of $10 per Mb), and if looking
for products go straight to search engines or review
sites.  Only thing that might work for me would be impulse
purchases - like if your site discussed some product X (say
a jet engine ;-), and a link where I could snap it up for a
few dollars, I might be tempted to buy on-line & allow you
to get your cut (or kick back) from the supplier.
Advertising links could lead to ethical questions about
maintaining the separation between editorial and
advertising, but I see that line already getting blurry
with local TV very often running news stories that link to
commercial products. Answer here is Google clearly labeling
sponsored links...




From: matt
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: revenue

tipping jars, donation boxes, street performer protocol.

it's been shown to be successful for once off financial
requests by other pure content sites. what i haven't heard
reports of, is whether it's working over the long term.
whether people will just tip once, then feel they've done
their bit for the next few years, or if they'll drop a
virtual coin in every few weeks or so.

i'm talking about paypal or amazon's donations scheme, of
course. although neither of them is available to us in new
zealand, so there's the catch.

i'm of the mindset that the way it's being done at the
moment, with a little box or button on the page, isn't
going to work. just like banner ads, people will become
blind to its presense over time. i'm thinking some sort of
cookie that tracks how long it's been since they were last
asked, and if it's been a month or so, then they get
redirected to a page (or given a popup) which suggests they
tip.

i don't think it's a stunning solution, just one that we
don't have all the numbers back on yet, so worth
speculating on.

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