From: Baba
Sent on: Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 8:44 AM
none really including email.
Paying for a broadband connection is all I am willing to accept, even that should com down in pricing.
As for the web apps, most of them regurgitate information and present it differently.
I pay for a subscription to the NewYorker but I find the content valuable, there is very little original content out there that is worth paying for in my book.
As for the tools that allow me to access some of the content be it Digg, Skype, Blogger, Facebook they all started with this notion that their revenue stream would be based on advertisements? and thereby have shot themselves from ever finding a userbase that will be willing to pay at any price point.
With online advertising revenues dropping it is to be seen how well these companies will fare? and how much they pare back in the short term.
I am sure there will be a million folks who will pay for a Skype or Facebook but thats all one will find the rest will find other ways to conduct their business.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Dean Collins <[address removed]> wrote:

First posted at: http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-you-ready-to-pay-for-your-web.html

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I was reading this post earlier today
http://davemorin.com/blog/hey-dopplr-make-me-pay/#comment[masked]

This quoted Jason Fried, of 37 Signals, who has made a call to the web community ?Please start charging for your applications. Free is not the future.?

And it got me thinking, what web applications am I ready to pay for that i would shell out $20 a year for?

Would I pay for Blogger? possibly but i'm thinking about moving it to Wordpress to be hosted on my own server for better url support anyway.

Would I pay $20 a year for Skype? Probably but would the 50 or so contacts I have also pay $20, probably not all, and therefor would it retain the same value if they weren't there?

Would I pay $20 for Digg? A site I visit daily and love, nope, but only because it replicates content i would consume from elsewhere.

Would I pay $20 for Facebook - No, I find it's value falling monthly and wonder about all the people who paid for and built facebook apps last year, did they see a return?

Would I pay $20 for http://my.live.com (my rss reader) - probably but I would also expect them to make a better product and ensure that they brought out a mobile version (which they've been promising forever...but never delivered) .

It's interesting that my view is changing because I'm 2 months away from launching my own web application that I look at advertising in a different light - is $5 cpm sustainable (nope, i dont think it should really be any more than about $1-$2 for most sites) -can or even should most website apps be advertising supported?

(btw we will be launching advertising / freemium model that has upgraded features for paying customers).

So I put the question to you - what apps are you prepared to pay $20 a year for?


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Regards,

Dean Collins
Cognation Inc
[address removed]
[masked]?? New York
[masked]?? (Sydney in-dial).
[masked] (London in-dial).





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