Beyond Advertising: Pay-site content, non-adult, non-financial?

From: C. Antonio Romero <romero_at_alumni.princeton.edu>
Date: Wed 21 Feb 2001 11:49:59 -0600

Question for the night: I'm working for a content site
right now that has thousands of pages of original, exclusive
entertainment content. Advertising and merchandising revenues
at present are falling far short of what's required to keep the
site on the air, though. Traffic would need to go up at least
20-fold to get ad revenues to be meaningful... ad views are still
around 150-200K per month. So at this point they're looking
at becoming a pay site.

With the culture of "everything's free" winding down on the
Web, what do people think about this strategic move? I know
that years ago it proved tough for slate.com to charge for
access-- they stagnated around 20,000 readers. But now,
could the market be ready? And how does one set a price?

Thanks for any suggestions.

-Antonio Romero



Received on Wed Feb 21 2001 - 11:49:59 CST