Would you pay for access to your favorite online communities? If so, which communities would you pay to access and what would you expect for your money? Facebook is one of the most important communities I access on a regular basis. Would you pay to get to Facebook? It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. Blogger Craig Daitch wrote about how his Facebook account was recently disabled -- at first he wanted an apology and an explanation -- now he just wants access to his photo albums. I would certainly share his pain if my Facebook account was disabled. I would gladly pay $10 a month for Facebook -- yes, $10 a month even during a time where I’m cutting back on my personal budget. Let me explain why I would want to pay up and also get your thoughts.For the $10 fee, I would want Facebook to back up my personal network -- which includes close friends, family, and content creators across the globe. I realize now I have 83 photo albums up on Facebook, over 650 important connections, and tons of posted items and personal notes. I don’t expect Facebook has any responsibility to maintain my user generated content (UGC), my network of hundreds of friends, the groups I created, or any other feature I use enthusiastically. I wonder if you agree with me and would want to pay Facebook for reliability and back up of your content and network -- take this poll:
I feel the same way about Twitter as I do Facebook as -- Twitter is necessary in my digital life. But lately the micro blogging service has not been reliable -- at least for me. What if I paid 9.95 a month for premium access? I certainly would for about 10 different reasons. Blogger David Rosenberg recently asked if Twitter can keep its hugely dominant position to become a real company with real revenue. I pose the complimentary question, would Twitter lose you as an active member if they started charging? And in return for the fees -- maybe you would get better access and additional services.I am blogging about this “pay for service” concept with online communities because I feel I need reliable Facebook and Twitter archival services. Surely, I can’t be the only one out there. In addition, I’m curious to know how many people would pay for access and back up of their UGC and personal network on the community of their favorite band, TV show, celebrity, movie franchise, etc.For instance, I would be willing to pay for two communities I access related to the funk band P-Funk. I’m really passionate about using both of them to connect with fellow P-Funk fans. I like to look at the memorabilia the fans share, including videos and pictures of the band, as well as their fan insights. The exact same P-Funk fans seem active in both of the two communities I use, so I wouldn’t choose one over the other because there are disparate networks of fans on each site. Would I pay to access two separate P-Funk fan communities? Maybe not, and each community has its pros and cons. One community -- MyFUNK -- I find has a lot more rich media, videos and pictures. The other fan site -- One Nation Board Room -- seems to be easier to navigate and read. Besides looking for your feedback in the poll here, I am researching now, looking for some data points on how successful subscription based online fan clubs are, because I would imagine if you are passionate enough of a fan you would be willing to pay a fee if you saw enough value in the fan club and the UGC and personal networks growing within them. I’ll report back if I find any hard data points, or you can share them below in the comments. However, access and subscription fees could lead to more exclusive communities. I read Seth Godin’s book ‘Tribes’ over the holidays and Mr. Godin certainly made the case for ‘exclusivity’ saying it can lead to a higher value community. Thanks for taking the poll and listening. I hope Facebook and Twitter do add archive / back up services in the future and I’m interested in hearing your other thoughts about how to maintain the UGC and networks you build on branded entertainment sites.
Would you pay for community?
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Chuck,I think that the top social networks have been successful because the barrier to entry has been very low: free with ads.Now that you have your network on Facebook/Twitter, moving to a paid model would cause some users to leave but others would stay.Would you have started using Facebook/ Twitter if there were an entry cost?I do think that adding premium services”" is another way to add payment but you have to be careful because you need the volume of free users to empower the “”network effect.”"”^0^1^^^0^0
12405^6821^Kathy English^kaenglis@cisco.com^^171.71.149.216^2009-01-27 01:00:53^2009-01-27 01:00:53^When I was working as a nurse in critical care with multiple devices that had to be connected to the network to send data to the clinical record, we had to assign color stickers to both the device cable and the network port. The ventilator was green, the cardiac monitor was red and the IV pumps were blue. In a busy ICU, there is little time to think through which cable goes into which color connection on the wall. The patient would either be deteriorating quickly (crashing) or returning from a road trip to an ancillary area (Radiology perhaps). Both of these situations required focused attention by the nurse. It was easy to put the cable into the wrong port. Tools that can make this seamless are a welcomed addition to clinical care delivery in a busy ICU or ED.^0^1^^^0^0
12406^6826^Mike Coop^blog@heycoop.com^http://www.heycoop.com^171.71.219.66^2009-01-27 13:26:30^2009-01-27 13:26:30^I agree–the network *is* everywhere, or at least getting there. I thought that Intel’s formal announcement of their Cliffside technology was extremely compelling, although they didn’t receive nearly the coverage I thought they should’ve. Wireless high-def solutions made great progress this year technically, although the price points still aren’t mass market. I still think it’ll be 2010 before we see a reasonable deployment of wireless high-def systems, and 2011 at the earliest before they’re mass market.Of course, the Cisco multi-room audio and media hub were both big winners, too. Lots of coverage on all things CES at my site.^0^1^^^0^0
12408^6823^Richard Lam^richarla@cisco.com^^128.107.248.220^2009-01-27 13:26:30^2009-01-27 13:26:30^love that commercial! builds nicely off the last one too^0^1^^^0^0
12426^6832^TomEdison^sysadmn@gmail.com^^12.191.136.2^2009-01-27 19:49:49^2009-01-27 19:49:49^I work for Generous Electric (or G****mn Eclectic). It must be GbE; we already get enough missives on the proper use of company brands and trademarks.^0^1^^^0^0
12424^6834^Scott Lennartz^uslennar@cisco.com^^128.107.248.220^2009-01-27 21:52:47^2009-01-27 21:52:47^It’s an exciting time to watch the explosion of innovation in this area. We are seeing a fundamental change in the way people use and think about energy as it relates to tech and productivity.^0^1^^^0^0
12425^6823^Richard Lam^richarla@cisco.com^^171.71.91.230^2009-01-27 19:07:56^2009-01-27 19:07:56^i believe it’s already airing on tv. if not, it will be. http://www.cisco.com/web/about/facts_info/advertising.html^0^1^^^0^0
12411^6785^Sohrab^sohrab.modi@gmail.com^http://blogs.sun.com/slog^67.188.5.70^2009-01-27 17:32:42^2009-01-27 17:32:42^”I had blogged a while ago on related topics. A twist to network virtualization. Perhaps a”" form of Unified Computing is the Sun Mantra: “”The Network is the Server”"http://blogs.sun.com/slog/entry/what_s_moore_s_lawhttp://blogs.sun.com/slog/entry/a_virtual_network_router”
Twitter requires the network effect you can only get with free, though at a certain point maybe it loses value because there are too many participants? One possibility is making it free to watch, but a premium to tweet. Or maybe to maintain a private group is a premium service (which makes the most sense for enterprise usage).
Chuck,I started a group on facebook over 2 years ago, to cater to the certification community, with a focus towards Cisco technologies.It has taken off extremely quick.
1) Thanks Michael – agreed. So I think Facebook / Twitter have enough of a network effect now that they are ready for premium services offerings, especially the back up services that I think are crucial.2) Thanks Usher – those are some cool ideas for premium services. I think even a back up of my tweets that I could print out like a diary would be a cool premium service. My mom always told me to keep a diary, so if Twitter charged me like 9.95 for a bound print out each month – there would be my diary
3) Ryan – see, it sounds like you are pretty reliant on that Facebook group you created. I sometimes worry – like what if your group got disabled? How do you back up the network you have created on that Facebook group platform? I believe back up systems for Facebook – which users could pay for – well, that to me is an extremely crucial idea.
Sounds like what you’re really asking for is paid data portability, which in essence is basically a feature.”" So it’s more of a freemium play, which kinda makes sense.As far as “”accessing the community”"; it’s great to hang with other fans of P-Funk, but the real scarcity is connections to P-Funk itself. That’s where the money is.(see: artistshare.com and topspinmedia.com)”
Ethan, thanks for your comment. Yes I think it is a freemium play – a back up of your Facebook network / content + twitter updates / network. I think if you went on either P-Funk community, especially MyFunk, you could find plenty of direct connections with P-Funk band members. And of course many of them are on MySpace and Facebook and are more than willing to talk to you! That’s what is great about these artist communities.I’ve heard of TopSpin, but I am checking out ArtistShare.com right now. Thanks for the tip!
Well purposed, unique take on this theme.
Obviously Facebook solved that problem now since there are ads showing and the site is more popular than ever!!!
Yes agreed. When I wrote this post, there was a little bit of a buzz saying Facebook would charge.