Suppose that people had to register to read as well?
An interesting idea, but it sounds a bit unfriendly to me.
If we excluded guests from viewing the forum, I think we'd also be excluding search engines, which would be a major disadvantage.
I'd wait and see what effect the new limits on guests posting has. I suppose a lot depends on what the priority is...
Although they go hand in hand to a degree, if it were my forum, I'd be weighing up three issues...
1) The "life" of the forum (affected by the ability to post);
2) The financial benefits of the preselling and other promotion (affected by the ability to read);
3) How I wanted to do things.
Much as I'm in favour of making people register to post, I'm far from sure about making people register to read (for at least one of the reasons above.)
Phil Tanny wrote:
As example, suppose it was a condition of using this forum, read or write, that you had to agree to receive occasional relevant ad mailings, or any other mailing that would benefit Allan or his favorite charity?
I'm not keen on this one. I think I might set up a filter.
Quote:
They can choose to sign up for my newsletter if they want to.
Exactly. It's like having pre-ticked (checked) boxes for a co-reg service. You are going to end up with pretty different response rates if you hijack subscribers.
Quote:
Quote:
The larger point is, do good publishers spend too much time worrying about the delicate sensitivities of spoiled readers? Do we undervalue our own work by begging people to take it for free?
Probably. But for me giving away a lot of stuff has proved to be a nice way of building a successful business. It helps builds trust and, much more important, I feel good about what I'm doing.
I have strong doubts as to the wisdom of the "free" model, too, Phil. Done well, it's great, but many publishers set up expectancy by starting in this way.
Secondly, I reckon people buy into a style or way of doing things. Judging by the difficulty many people have converting from a free to a paid model, I often wonder whether it's the conversion as much as the principle of having to pay that's the problem.
Phil Tanny wrote:
Isn't it odd that it sounds unfriendly (and I
agree many would see it that way) to ask someone
to complete a 15 second task in order to receive
26,000 pages of truly useful content that took
many people thousands of hours to create?
That's the commitment thing again. I think it acts as a good way of pre-qualifying spenders as opposed to info. collectors.
Allan G wrote:
Phil Tanny wrote:
But if you charged $5 per month for your site/forum the readership would likely plummet.
I suppose one way round that problem would be to charge a fee from now on, while all founding members remained free.
We could charge, say, $10 or a year, or something small, to encourage more sign-ups. Say 2,000 new members at $10 a head...
Phil Tanny wrote:
Once somebody gives you any money at all, even a buck, their expectations change. They'll require (ie. demand) support and personal attention because now they are a customer. You have to process the orders, charge backs etc etc. You can't even really pay for the money handling stuff at a buck a month.
I know it's contrary to conventional wisdom, but has anyone ever tried actively stating that (human) support isn't available? I'd like to think that offering support (out of a misguided sense of duty) and then not providing it robustly or in the right spirit (because your heart wasn't in it) might be worse than no support (past FAQs and a guaranteed refund) - as long as it was stated up-front.
All the best,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 5810 Location: by the beach, Australia
Posted: Sun Sep 12, 2004 7:00 am Post subject:
Thanks, David.
I have no plans whatsoever to start charging for this forum.
If you're feeling friendly and would like to pay some sort of fee, instead tell a friend about it, add a link to it on a web site, or recommend it in an email discussion list, blog, ebook or report.
If you're feeling REALLY friendly, do all those things. _________________ Allan Gardyne
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