The Free Content Jamboree is OverBy Pita Enriquez Harris
I'm not the first person to write it and I won't be the last, but now even I feel moved to add my voice to the rumbling…the days of free content are numbered and it may even be a good thing.
You see it everywhere, the slide of 'free TV' to an almost unwatchable offering of home improvement and cookery shows (whilst all the good stuff sneaks onto 'pay for' TV), search engines taking money for listings, Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) charging for financial reports, MSN.co.uk threatening to charge subscription fees, Moreover (http://www.moreover.com - a newsportal which supplies regular news headlines as Web content) sneaking a major revision into their licensing agreement (without informing all if any of their current users) which now charges from $24,000 USD annually to any commercial organizations wishing to use Moreover-sourced headlines on their Web site a service which until July 10th 2001 was free!
When grizzled publishers first looked into the whole 'Internet thing' I'm sure that they groused about the fact that all over the world, the Web suddenly seemed to be about giving information away, giving your best stuff and as much of it as you could shift. Quality content is expensive to produce - no one argued about that - but when the business model was about grabbing eyeballs rather than dollars, it seemed to make a lot of sense. Well, that idea went out of the window with everybody's Internet stocks. The grizzled publishers who shook their heads look wiser by the day.
Free content only makes real business sense if you have the same revenue model as a narcotics dealer.
Narcotic dealers know all about the concept of getting people addicted to freebies and thereby converting them into customers for life.
The real question is this: is information as addictive as a recreational drug?
From the point of view of the individual human brain, it probably is, maybe more so: to our brains, information is sustenance to be eagerly absorbed. That's why we love gossip and read the cereal packets - even super-educated smart cookies will stoop to that in the absence of anything more 'substantial'. The bad news for the purveyors of free content on the Web who hope to convert greedy consumers into customers is that the human brain isn't all that fussy about where it gets its sustenance. So your content isn't free any more? Well, turn on the TV.
By comparison, corporations are relatively immune from the addictive effects of information. They pick and choose more carefully. Information is paid for only when it provides some tangible return on investment. The thing is, so much of the information we are used to enjoying for free on the Web is of such high quality that it may well be indispensable.
It is an interesting question to ask yourself: if all the content you enjoy suddenly started to cost, which services would you pay for?
In other words, which services add enough value to be essential?
Here's my personal list:
- A good search engine. The Web is no use without it!
- Web-based email so that you can email people from any computer in the world.
- Regular news feed for my industry and my customers industries.
- Industry analysis and metrics for my industry.
- A job searching/online recruitment service.
- Employee evaluation online tests.
These 6 services have become essential to my business. I use far more information services on the Web, but I could live without them and for many, arguably the provider benefits as much from my use of the service (e.g. cinema and train timetables) as do I.
What is a publisher of quality content on the Web to do? They say that on the Web, content is king. Then there's that other saying that paying peanuts only buys monkeys. At the moment, the money to pay for quality content is coming predominantly from investors; people and companies in the business of creating the Great White Information Source. Three cheers for them I say. If it comes to it, I know whose services I'd pay for. It isn't even half of what I use right now.
Eyeballs don't mean dollars: customers mean dollars.
Learn to value what you enjoy for free today; in the future, be prepared to cough up!
