The most important task before those of us in traditional media is adapting to the disruptive economic change that's before us. I've made a number of posts about this and there is a lot of creative thinking in the area. See for example, Kevin Kelly's essential Better Than Free post, which I've been promoting for quite a while.
But I'm sure that I've been missing quite a bit because I'm woefully slow in getting through my blogroll these days. I was about six weeks late in finding the post of this title from my friend Stephen Hill, a long-time successful practitioner of paid content associated with public radio. In linking to a recommended post on the 37signals blog, he writes:
... But the fact is, we had no choice. No one was going to give us any kind of funding, and our traffic numbers made any thought of advertising support a fantasy. ΒΆ That said, it has taken us a long time to understand the value calculation that users make when deciding whether to pay. We have found that the entire area is very nuanced, and the relationship between free, paid, and "freemium" models takes careful experimentation to get right. We wound up with 3 major levels of service and no less than 25 different pricing options! (see PLANS at www.hos.com) ...
Link: Spatial Relations. --Dennis
There is no other solution in this recession than to lower our expectations of profit. The situation is not that bad if you look at it not comparing with the previous times when things were going extraordinary.
Posted by: Ideea Rencontres | Tuesday, 07 July 2009 at 13:30