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Friday, February 20, 2009
Net Gains
Pros and cons of pay-to-read web content, online social IDs
By Galen Moore
MHT's Jim Connolly: Social network sites focus on niches, sports
2008 High Tech All-Stars in their own words: Chris Brogan
MHT Sales Roundtable: Web 2.0, Meet Sales 101
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard a guy compare his line of work to a toilet. (Typically in my line of work the topic comes up over the third or fourth beverage in some fine local establishment.) But I was surprised to hear Chris Brogan, the vaunted web marketing specialist, say without a trace of bitterness that online social functions are “like toilets.”
Brogan, who has not made his reputation by being negative, explained: A hotel room might be luxurious, but if it lacked a toilet (and probably a commodious one), you’d stay somewhere else, right? Thus websites. Brogan believes that if your site doesn’t let users hobnob with friends while they shop or surf, eventually they’ll go shop or surf someplace else.
This presents a problem. Without some way to integrate your passwords, settings and friend lists, users end up with too many profiles to track. And you thought it was bad having five or six supermarket coupon cards on your keychain.
Instead, there’s got to be some kind of amalgamation of online social identities coming, Brogan said. It looks as if he was right.
We talked in November. The following month, Facebook Inc.’s Facebook Connect and Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Friend Connect became publicly available. (Both were announced in private beta last May.) In January, CNN used Facebook Connect to let online viewers chat with Facebook friends while they watched President Barack Obama’s inauguration. Then, earlier this month, Facebook joined the board of the OpenID Foundation, heartening the open-source universal password system’s geeky advocates.
Following Brogan’s logic, I will eventually be able to “run into” my Facebook friends while buying groceries at Stopandshop.com.
Do I like this idea? What should I do on days when I don’t want to see anyone? At some point, the best way to hide from the world may be to get up and go to the mall.
Publishing’s payday?
There was a time when the fastest way to brand yourself ignorant was to mention the idea that people would pay for something delivered over the web.
Now, with ad revenue models bursting like soap bubbles (and investors taking a bath), the idea of “pay to play” has risen from its grave to again walk the Earth as a legitimate topic of discussion.
Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) launched the Kindle 2.0 on Feb. 9. The device, made with technology from Cambridge’s E Ink Corp., has proven through its popularity that people are willing to pay to download a book online. So why not a blog post or a magazine article?
Bloggers and journalists have begun asking this question furiously. On the same day the new Kindle debuted, former Slate.com editor Michael Kinsley said, Not a chance. Historically, he pointed out in a New York Times op-ed, subscription and newsstand revenues haven’t even covered printing costs. When they’re not getting a print edition, why should readers pay?
They won’t, unless the content solves a clear, preferably time-sensitive, problem, according to Abe Dane, COO of Tizra Inc., a Rhode Island-based online publishing company. “It needs to answer a question or solve a problem in a way that will enable someone to do their job or some other task that’s important to them. And it needs to do so in a timely way,” Dane said.
That doesn’t sound like the reason most people read newspapers, but Dane, whose company handles mostly white papers and e-books, said a key piece of the puzzle is helping potential readers find a piece of content at the moment they need it most — then demonstrating it’s worth their hard-earned coin.
Given most of you are probably reading this online, I’m ignoring the elephant in the room. The topic begs a more direct — if hypothetical — question, and I’m not afraid to ask it: Would you pay to read this column?
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