Another excellent post Katherine. I have just read Chris Andersons book 'The Future of Free' which you highlighted in a previous post, where he discusses the 'freemium' model.
I agree with what you say here.
There may be an 'abundance' of information, but this means there is a 'scarcity' of time. Everyone can't read all the blogs, articles etc on topics, but membership organisations can become aggregators of that info, and 'the place to come'
The one challenge we have though that is posed by the 'freemium' model is the same one Microsoft faced (which Chris highlights in his book) with the growing dominance of Google and all its related (free) services.
How do established membership organisations who may have a large number of paying members change their offer? The model of giving a 'membership' away for free and then charging for 'extra services' as and when used byorganisations may be great for small/web based organisations...but if a membership organisation depends on the income for membership to survive--can this model ever realistically be fully implemented - if only 5-10% of members will ever pay for anything? in addition to the falling revenues being generated by advertising which much of the success of this freemium model is based?
Claire
Another excellent post Katherine. I have just read Chris Andersons book 'The Future of Free' which you highlighted in a previous post, where he discusses the 'freemium' model. I agree with what you say here. There may be an 'abundance' of information, but this means there is a 'scarcity' of time. Everyone can't read all the blogs, articles etc on topics, but membership organisations can become aggregators of that info, and 'the place to come' The one challenge we have though that is posed by the 'freemium' model is the same one Microsoft faced (which Chris highlights in his book) with the growing dominance of Google and all its related (free) services.
How do established membership organisations who may have a large number of paying members change their offer? The model of giving a 'membership' away for free and then charging for 'extra services' as and when used byorganisations may be great for small/web based organisations...but if a membership organisation depends on the income for membership to survive--can this model ever realistically be fully implemented - if only 5-10% of members will ever pay for anything? in addition to the falling revenues being generated by advertising which much of the success of this freemium model is based?
Cheers Claire