Hence the purest, simplest model for online journalism: you, us, and a meter. Period. No corporate ownership, no advertising demands, no pressure for pageviews ... just a concept designed to make your reading experience as good as possible, and to lead us not into temptation.It's an interesting concept that is presented in a fairly convincing fashion, I think. A nickel a day? I mean, that's 4 cents more than a penny.
So for the next month, we're going to offer you advance membership of the Dish for $19.99 a year, which translates to $1.67 a month, which is around a nickel a day. The meter won't start until February, and the price won't change then, but by pre-subscribing, you give us a crucial financial bridge to get to independence - and you'll never notice a thing when the transition happens.
To be honest, we didn't know where to set the price - we have almost no precedents for where we want to go - but $19.99 seemed the lowest compatible with a serious venture. We wanted to make this as affordable as possible, while maximizing revenues.
Here's what Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress had to say about Sullivan's plan...
The success or failure of the Daily Dish’s meter model will tell us something about what kind of support a site with that sort of brand, longevity, and audience can expect to muster, just as the Times’ paywall has given us similar data for large, long-established newspapers, and Talking Points Memo did for the reported news site that grew out of Josh Marshall’s blog and discussion community. But it shouldn’t have to be a litmus test for the future of online journalism. Instead, this should be a reminder that we’re at the beginning of a long period of developing new business models out of the decline of one old one.What do you think? Does a blog paywall make much sense? Does it have much chance of catching on? And, if so, with what kind of blogs?
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AMERICAblog is reporting that Sullivan made $100K his first day.
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Make that over $300K.
Basically, we've gotten a third of a million dollars in 24 hours, with close to 12,000 paid subscribers (at last count). On average, readers paid almost $8 more than we asked for. To say we're thrilled would obscure the depth of our gratitude and relief.
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5 comments:
It works only if the product is a known quantity; in this case, Andrew Sullivan has built up brand recognition. We have a pretty good idea of what we'll be getting, and from there it's up to the individual to decide whether or not it's worth the price.
It helps that the price is "so low." It's wiser to start low and ramp it up than it is to start high and offer steep discounts later, because constant sales and specials indicate that the product isn't very good, while a product whose price increases - albeit in small increments - must be pretty good.
Hmm ... interesting way to monetize a blog without depending on advertisers. If you have a large following, this could work and especially if you provide free teasers. You know, it's kind of like how I support NPR, but it's not a paywall.
Problem might be getting newcomers. I know who he is, but have never really paid much attention to his stuff. Even if a friend were to tell me to go read today's post, if I have to spend $20 on it, I'm not going to.
I suppose that's where the free teasers maria above was talking about come in.
After the initial die-hard followers pay up, how do you keep getting people to spend $ on something they don't know?
Sullivan is such a clubby insider and his move so semi-audacious that he's likely swinging not only his more faithful readers, but plenty of inside media folks. I'm with Rosenberg that Sullivan's experiment won't tell us so much about pay walls for blogs as it will about the cult of Sullivan.
We already have some familiarity with this model, right? It reminds me of the subscription newsletters that hedge fund managers, political wingnuts (like John Birchers) and other mainstream "outsiders" like Bill James (with his Baseball Prospectus) once wrote and self-published for their respective select-few audiences of consumer-disciples. So how successful is the approach? It made these folks enough to get by on until they could go big through some other avenue.
Sullivan's moving in the opposite direction, which is weird. My guess is that like most of us, he'd rather not have to answer to the powers that be and instead has a chance -- he thinks -- to strike out on his own. I'm also guessing he'll either have to increase his book-writing output and guest appearances and other income-generating activities. ... Until he gets sick of the hassle and settles in somewhere else for a steady paycheck. Whatever ultimately happens to his pay-blog experiment, I don't think it will have much bearing on the model itself.
I agree with Anon above. Why would I pay $20 to read something I don't know anything about? How does he attract new readers this way? Maybe people could pay $1 for a week or month subscription?
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