RE: Will They Pay? Part II

From: Michael Martinez <michael.martinez2_at_eudoramail.com>
Date: Fri 08 Jun 2001 12:10:32 -0500

MICHAEL MARTINEZ <Michael_at_xenite.org> WROTE:

[some snippage for brevity]

>If you can convince more people to buy stuff on the
>Web (and I buy goods and services online all the
>time -- I don't need convincing on that score), then
>you can work with a larger potential market for paid
>content.

TO WHICH BRIAN SHEPHERD <Brian.Shepherd_at_TechnologyReview.com> REPLIED:

>Michael, with all due respect, where are you getting
>your numbers?

I keep posting links to my sources.

For example, on April 24 I posted this link to a Business
Week article which discussed charging for content:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2001/nf20010423_048.htm

On May 11 I posted a link to this article at Online
Publishing News which cites Forrester Research, which
recently released a study showing that only 10% of
Americans will pay for any sort of online content.

http://www.onlinepublishingnews.com/htm/n20010212.053895.htm

>According to what I've read from Media Metrix,
>during the 2000 holiday season, consumers spent $12 billion
>dollars online, vs. $7 Billion dollars the year before.

[snip 55 million people have bought goods and services online]

The United States' economic activity is measured in
trillions of dollars (a thousand times the numbers you
cite here).

Billions of dollars in revenues are big bucks for any
individual or company. But for the multitude of industries
trying to forge revenue streams on the Internet, that is
simply insufficient to support all schemes.

The debate here has not been about whether people are
going to buy stuff online. It's been about whether
charging for content is a feasible option for the
online business community. At best, only a handful
of sites are going to be able to do this and make a
profit.

There are over 1 billion Web pages of content out there,
according to Google and other sources (just click on
http://www.google.com/ to see how many pages they claim
to offer in their searchable index). Those billions of
pages are mostly free content. Most of that free content
is provided by government organizations, non-profit
organizations, universities and schools, and hobbyists.
A lot of what remains is also provided by the business
community, which mostly understands that in order to stay
competitive it has to match people's needs.

If you've got content that no one else can provide, and
which people will pay money for, you can charge for content.

Most businesses don't have that kind of content and cannot
afford to develop it.

Michael Martinez
 Worlds of Imagination on the Web
  info_at_xenite.org
   [http://www.xenite.org/index.htm]
    XENITE.org..Watch Free Internet TV at Xenite.Org



Received on Fri Jun 08 2001 - 12:10:32 CDT