Paywalls really interest me which is why I have written about them many times before. See Paywalls that work and work backkwards.
In 1995 I launched Hotnews which just might have been the first technology blog in the UK. It was free. Anyone could read it as many times as they wanted. It quickly became a ‘must read’. My reputation as an analyst soared and it became the main marketing channel for the business which, in turn, soared.
In 2000 I sold to Ovum who decided soon after (against my wishes) to make Hotnews only available to paying customers. It died as a result.
HotViews is the natural ‘son of Hotnews’. It has had similar – if not greater – success and has seen TechMarketView’s standing and success soar too. But we keep asking ‘do we give away too much for free on HotViews?” We always come back to the same conclusion. ’As it works so well, why change?”
I had those thoughts today as I read that the Daily Telegraph is to erect a paywall. It joins The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, New York Times and an increasing number of other media titles. The Sun is to erect a paywall from the start of the next football season too. All of the paywalls have some elements of the Freemium model. Ie you can read a limited number of articles before you have to pay. HotViews has a similar model. All the archive stuff (and, of course, all our in-depth research and analysis) is behind our paywall. The constant ‘annoyance’ at not getting to that material is often cited as the reason clients become TechMarketView subscribers (exactly how the model is meant to work!)
Views?