Personally, I think that the funding success for ADN is showcasing that there could be a market for non-freemium and non-free services. Another contender here is the economist, which is one of the very, very few journalistic products that makes money with a pay wall. The reason, again, being that they offer very high quality.
I would also pay for an online newspaper that lacks advertisement and employs really good journalists to paint a picture that is as close to the truth as possible. The less ties between a newspaper and any industry, the less the chance that a story is pulled because the company in question places lots of advertisement in the newspaper.
It's true that most people wouldn't want to pay for a community, many people on Twitter only use it to read what celebrities are up to. However, I don't think that a social network needs to be as big as Facebook anymore to be successful - or Twitter, or Instagram. As long as there's a vibrant community, that is dedicated to the service, and solid growth, everything is fine.
Especially since Facebook (at least for me) already satisfies the 'friends' kind of social network. I have all my contacts there, so for engaging with them, I go to Facebook, I don't need another service. If I join another service, then because the value proposition is not about friends, but about something different. Badoo is a success because their value proposition is about dating, and Twitter is a success because they offer many-to-many friendships and open celebrities. Again, Instagram was a success because they changed the mapping, instead of friends -> content they went for content -> friends.
As long as a network doesn't compete with Facebook on their core values, i guess they're fine.
On Twitter, I don't care if there're 10Million or 100Million other users, I can only see so many. So as long as there're enough users on ADN I'd guess that I'm happy there.
Oh, I'm also just trying to explain what I think about where this is going, I'm not trying to defend anything, sorry if it sounds like that :)
Thanks, Appetizer is in many ways a side project right now, but it's fun working on it. Also, while we're at it, I like the OpenPhoto approach, I really want to install it once I find some time. Had it on my todo list for months now. I'm unhappy with most current online photo solutions, and having them on my own server sounds just about right. I wish you best of luck there :)
I truly hope you're right. I wouldn't personally pay for ADN (I don't think) but I do wish there were more services online that were funded directly by customers. I think the web would be a better place if more of those sites existed and users got more accustomed to not having everything for "free".
There are a couple online services I absolutely love paying for. I wish there were more. ADN seems like it might be that for a larger number than I had originally thought.
Here's to the future of everyone using Appetizer to post photos from their OpenPhoto site ;).
Comments
Personally, I think that the funding success for ADN is showcasing that there could be a market for non-freemium and non-free services. Another contender here is the economist, which is one of the very, very few journalistic products that makes money with a pay wall. The reason, again, being that they offer very high quality.
I would also pay for an online newspaper that lacks advertisement and employs really good journalists to paint a picture that is as close to the truth as possible. The less ties between a newspaper and any industry, the less the chance that a story is pulled because the company in question places lots of advertisement in the newspaper.
It's true that most people wouldn't want to pay for a community, many people on Twitter only use it to read what celebrities are up to. However, I don't think that a social network needs to be as big as Facebook anymore to be successful - or Twitter, or Instagram. As long as there's a vibrant community, that is dedicated to the service, and solid growth, everything is fine.
Especially since Facebook (at least for me) already satisfies the 'friends' kind of social network. I have all my contacts there, so for engaging with them, I go to Facebook, I don't need another service. If I join another service, then because the value proposition is not about friends, but about something different. Badoo is a success because their value proposition is about dating, and Twitter is a success because they offer many-to-many friendships and open celebrities. Again, Instagram was a success because they changed the mapping, instead of friends -> content they went for content -> friends.
As long as a network doesn't compete with Facebook on their core values, i guess they're fine.
On Twitter, I don't care if there're 10Million or 100Million other users, I can only see so many. So as long as there're enough users on ADN I'd guess that I'm happy there.
Oh, I'm also just trying to explain what I think about where this is going, I'm not trying to defend anything, sorry if it sounds like that :)
Thanks, Appetizer is in many ways a side project right now, but it's fun working on it. Also, while we're at it, I like the OpenPhoto approach, I really want to install it once I find some time. Had it on my todo list for months now. I'm unhappy with most current online photo solutions, and having them on my own server sounds just about right. I wish you best of luck there :)
I truly hope you're right. I wouldn't personally pay for ADN (I don't think) but I do wish there were more services online that were funded directly by customers. I think the web would be a better place if more of those sites existed and users got more accustomed to not having everything for "free".
There are a couple online services I absolutely love paying for. I wish there were more. ADN seems like it might be that for a larger number than I had originally thought.
Here's to the future of everyone using Appetizer to post photos from their OpenPhoto site ;).