Adam Howitt's Blog

Nov 20
2008

Paid vs free archives

At : 3:54 PM | Link | Blogging | Comments (24) | Send | 1381 Views |

Around a month ago I made the controversial move to make articles over 90 days old available for a $5 fee and boy has it whipped up a storm in several tea cups.  I'm curious to start a discussion about the concept to get a read from the people who read this blog.

Justification
My rationale for the $5 archive fee is that most of the content you find on my site is solving a specific problem that isn't found easily elsewhere online.  Typically I start writing a blog entry when I've spent a few hours troubleshooting, googling, pulling out my hair and then finally having a breakthrough. Let's say it takes 5 hours to piece everything together, then another 2 hours to write it up.  I publish it and for 90 days it's free to the world.  

Fast forward to the troubled developer or marketer who finds one of my archived blog entries in Google and clicks through to the site.  They might have spent 15 minutes searching for an answer which, at $20 per hour equates to $5.  They can spend another 15 minutes searching or pay just over the price of a venti latte at Starbucks or a pint of beer and get the answer to their problem.  If they pay and my blog entry isn't what they needed, then by all means, let me know and I'll refund you the $5, heck, I may even offer some suggestions on how to fix it that weren't covered in the blog post.

Why blog at all?
This is an obvious answer but it connects me with solutions to complex problems and it gives back to the community that has allowed me to be successful, but ultimately it translates into reputation and consulting dollars.  

Entitlement
The idea for this post came from one anonymous comment and one where the author was outraged enough to leave a note, both suggesting some level of entitlement to access to my archives.  If I write something online and take it down are you entitled to the content?  If I don't write about it, you may struggle to find an answer to your question and not know that I solved this problem.  There are thousands of problems solved every day where the author never shares their findings publicly.  The named commenter even went as far to suggest it affects ColdFusion's reputation if I charge for my archives!

What do YOU think?
I really do want to know what people think.  Should information be free?  Are you entitled to everything I've ever published for free?  Is $5 too much?  Is it too little?

Now for the Freebie
This article will be available for 90 days, after which if you want to find it again it will be $5.  Unless you're aware of the backdoors.  Some of my former coworkers thought they had found a chink in my armour using the wayback machine or Google's cached version of the page but in all honesty, it was deliberate.  I like smart people and if you know anything about user agents you too can roam freely through my archives.  If you're desperate though, just shoot me an email and I'll grant you access to an article.  I just want you to stop and think "is this worth the price of a cup of coffee to solve my problem?"

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  1. my opinion is as follows: it's your blog so you can do with it what you please. i don't agree or disagree about charging people because i know if i really want to get the information i'll get it.

    Posted By tim : Posted At 11/20/08 2:02 PM
  2. Micropayments are still a pain.

    It's not the $5 that's the problem.

    It's the process of getting someone the $5.

    Posted By Josh : Posted At 11/20/08 2:06 PM
  3. Good point Josh - is there a better way/ any way to make it less painful besides PayPal? I recall Amazon had something like that a while back.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 11/20/08 2:08 PM
  4. One of the quickest / most painless examples of micropayment systems is in iTunes. One click with instant delivery.

    I don't know if PayPal (or anyone besides Amazon) has translated this to the Web.

    I do think PayPal is the right choice because of its large user base. I'm just curious how much flexibility they give for integration/streamlining.

    Posted By Josh : Posted At 11/20/08 2:24 PM
  5. I was just flipping through your blog seeing what kind of info you were offering and I saw the post about your new office so I thought I'd give it a read but I got to pay 5 bucks. Depending on the info you supply I would charge but if it's some random post(I just wanted to read your experience of your new office) then it shouldn't.

    Posted By Andrew : Posted At 11/20/08 2:27 PM
  6. I agree with the last post (Andrew). First of all is your blog, so you are on all your right to do whatever you want; but I think it makes sense, and can even benefit you, to classify which posts are worth the payment and which are just random everyday blogger fluff. I guess this means having some kind of "premium" content that is available for a fee. Just a suggestion...

    Posted By Oscar Arevalo : Posted At 11/20/08 2:39 PM
  7. Another issue is that your full content is being indexed, so your "Google Juice" may be outweighing another article that's still available for free elsewhere. While that's certainly the capitalistic way, I believe Google frowns on generating different pages for the search engine than for the person actually visiting your site.

    Google defines that as Cloaking: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-google-defines-ip-delivery.html

    I only found out you were charging for access to your archives when I was doing research on S3 stuff the other day :-)

    Posted By Scott Frazer : Posted At 11/20/08 2:47 PM
  8. Wow, good thoughts all round. Especially cloaking. I think experts exchange is big offender for that and not letting the first click be free. With solution based content though, like the focus of this blog, the first click is the solution and the rest of the clicks are such a low value to the visitor it doesn't make sense.

    I like the idea of picking out the fluff pieces like my new office to indicate non-premium content. I'll keep an eye on the responses and I'm digging in on the cloaking issue to find out more so I don't get booted!

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 11/20/08 3:10 PM
  9. Expert Sexchange is a weird site. We had a discussion about them at the office one day because everyone who went there was getting different results. In general, they seem to get around cloaking by actually hiding the real answers at the bottom of the post *IF YOU COME FROM GOOGLE* check this out as an example:

    http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/Web_Languages/PHP/PHP_Windows/Q_21043386.html

    When I visit it with no referrer set, I get a page that isn't helpful at all, but if I visit from this link:

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=active+directory+experts+exchange

    and scroll waaaay the heck down, I can see the actual answers.

    I guess technically they are cloaking, but they are doing it in a way that sort of benefits Google users.

    I find this whole discussion rather fascinating, in case you couldn't tell, though I do think $5 is too much to re-read about your green card application.

    Posted By Scott Frazer : Posted At 11/20/08 3:20 PM
  10. That is interesting. I only get the real answers by viewing the cached version from Google - if I CTRL click for a new tab in Chrome it must lose my referer because I get no answers but if I just click (and hence keep referer) I see the answers as you suggest near the bottom. Same thing if I click the cached view.

    I agree - $5 to read about my green card app is way too much :-)

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 11/20/08 3:36 PM
  11. Every blogger - or website creator in general - is free to run their site how they wish.

    I am someone who has always promised no ads on their blog, so I wouldn't consider any sort of charging scheme but if you end up making reasonable money off $5 "back-issue subscriptions" then more power to you.

    If folks don't want to pay, they can keep on Googling and maybe find the answer elsewhere. I'm not sure I really believe that claim that your solutions are unique on the web... I Googled for the Motorola / Comcast Mute issue (that archived article you link to) and found this:

    http://onemansblog.com/2007/02/06/time-warner-and-motorola-dvr-mute-problem/

    Posted By Sean Corfield : Posted At 11/20/08 4:40 PM
  12. Hey Sean, I only said "solutions not found easily elsewhere on the web" and the Comcast DVR solution you found postdates my blog post by 2 years. Sure people can repost my content :-)

    That aside, I still believe that the majority of my content targets a very specific set of conditions that I was unable to easily find a solution .

    I agree, if they don't want to pay, keep on keeping on.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 11/20/08 5:04 PM
  13. But, of course, it everyone took this course, solutions and help would be considerably harder to find. When it is just you doing this you get the bonus of extra revenue with no downside. That would change significantly if this becomes commonplace. The number of situations in which you, and many many others, find it hard to find solutions will go up. If this becomes commonplace everyone loses, including you. This is especially true when you have to fork out five bucks without knowing if the "solution" is the right one or the help if helpful. It also begs the question of "why blog?" This approach makes the 90 days less a contribution to the community than a loss leader for the revenue stream of the archives (however virtual that is). And don't you get value from the help that you find freely available on other blog, forums, etc. If you feel the community owes you something (a legitimate view), I think the "wishlist" approach Ray Camden uses is a better way to go. Still, it is your blog so you are free to do as you please.

    Posted By Magnus : Posted At 11/20/08 5:49 PM
  14. Thanks for your input Magnus - I really do appreciate it. I wanted to get a read from the community and I'm glad to say I've had a lot of intelligent input. As an experiment it has been an abject failure - zero revenue. in just over a month. It was less about the money and more about the value of the long tail of my blog - the old stories that continue to pick up traffic every day and trying to see if there was money in them there hills.

    I think I'm going to remove the fee based on the "cloaking" issue and the lack of revenue.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 11/20/08 6:04 PM
  15. Hi Adam... this is brilliant! This isn't about collecting $5, it's about drawing attention to the concept of collecting $5! :)

    If people find value in something, they are willing to pay for it. Value of course means different things to people. Some will look to the frequency of posts, others the design and others the content and all kinds of combinations of them - so it's as much style as substance.

    When Meetup.com went to a paid model, they lost a lot of customers, but did profit from those who stayed. Now people organize over their own blogs, wikis and Facebook and like any business model on the Internet, they have to be continuously reviewed.

    My main blog, thehotiron.com, as well as my "tech tips" blog, sourcegate.com, are free. I do have affiliate and Google ads, and do get a few clicks. But I don't blog for profit, instead I use it as an entre to my business, as well as a reference site for my business.

    I'll keep reading your feed, but I probably won't pay - hey, it's tough out there these days!

    mp/m

    Posted By Mike Maddaloni - The Hot Iron : Posted At 11/20/08 8:23 PM
  16. It's a tough call. I personally like providing my information for free. I have a full time day job, so money isn't a big issue for the moment.

    I would be happy just to break even on my blog. I run it on a virtual server for various reasons and end up dropping about $40 a month with 0 return.

    If times were to suddenly get tougher, I don't think I'd start charging since I honestly don't believe the ROI is there, I'd probably just hang up a "Gone Fishin'" sign.

    For me, having to pay for information just drives me to find the answer myself and then post what I discovered, even though the effort involved may end up costing more, the satisfaction received makes up for it.

    Posted By Christopher Wigginton : Posted At 11/20/08 8:23 PM
  17. Well as many others have said - its your blog so you can do as you please. However, I think its important to keep in perspective the true value of your blog.

    The more people see your blog, the greater your influence in the CF community, and the more likely you'll be invited to give presentations or speak at conferences.

    AND - the more likely other developers will be to come to you with work. Personally, speaking, I know that I forwarded a job to you in the past (I think it was ec2 related). And I have forwarded a few jobs to other developers BECAUSE I read their blogs.

    Furthermore, if your ec2 article (which is excellent) is behind a paywall, eventually, someone will eventually write a new one. Then the value of yours will drastically be reduced as its no longer as scarce.

    I can say from personal experience, that when I come across a CF article behind a paywall (and there are a few), even if its 2 bucks... I keep going. Usually, I can find it somewhere else.

    I would gladly pay the $2 for the article if I KNEW it would solve my problem - but I don't do I? And I cannot unless I get to see it....which requires me to pay first.

    A better idea for you might be to offer paid support. I might be $50 bucks for that.

    Posted By Jeff Gladnick : Posted At 11/20/08 8:28 PM
  18. Micropayments are a nice idea, but I can't see them working for you. Unless I was particularly desperate to solve something for work, and I was *sure* you had the solution, and I really couldn't find the same solution elsewhere, I'd *maybe* consider it.

    I wonder how Community MX does: http://www.communitymx.com

    Also as pointed out already, there'd be no point trying to charge for articles like this one, only the really in-depth technical ones.

    Posted By duncan : Posted At 11/20/08 11:16 PM
  19. Hi Adam, Can I first say what a great idea, generating income ... I will not be silly enough to say profit ... from online posts is something we should all be looking into. Personally I prefer the donate method. "If you found this artical useful please donate $5" etc. That way hopefully you begin to cover your costs and people are made aware of the fact you are running a business and like the rest of us trying to make a living.

    Posted By John H : Posted At 11/21/08 4:13 AM
  20. I'm not a frequent reader of your blog, (this just popped up on fullasagoog, and I clicked through to it). I will pose this one difficulty with your "business" model though:

    When I'm searching for a solution to a problem, most often I start with a google search, put in the keywords. Even given 5-10 keywords, Narrow problems like the kind I bring to Google tend to return about a 10% hit rate in terms of matching my actual problem. I.e. of the 10 results on a page, only one of them will actually be relevant to my problem.

    Once I've gotten my results, I start clicking down the list of entries which seem from the blurb to match my question. Once I've clicked on a page, I read through it to see if it matches my problem. Usually only about 1/3 or less of the articles I click through to actually match my situation. If it's an "Experts Exchange" article, or some other site which offers an "Entry Barrier", then I'll usually just skip it and move on. Even with as sparse of information population as I'm getting, there's always another source out there...

    And I guess that's my ultimate problem with your archive charges: If I can't read the whole article to see whether or not it's information that applies to my situation, then I'm going to skip it and move on to the next Google link.

    Ultimately, It's a fundamental problem with charging for information: until you've heard the information, it's unknown as to whether or not it's worth the value that is being asked for it. We accept the recurring costs of Magazines and Newspapers because experience has shown that they have a consistent level of reporting on the subjects they specialize in, but the random-access nature of the internet makes that model nearly worthless unless you're able to establish yourself first as a "Brand Name" like GameSpot, SlashDot or MSNBC. Even then, with the fickleness of internet culture, these sites would instantly lose most of their readership with a pay model.

    Of course, this is all predicated on the fact that you must have found a way to allow the Google search bots complete access to your full articles without pay, just in case the keywords I'm searching for are in the "pay" portion of the site...

    Posted By Adam Ness : Posted At 11/22/08 10:00 AM
  21. My immediate reaction:

    - I'm more likely to look for the answer somewhere else before paying

    - for many types of content as it gets older its less valuable

    - if Google returns your URL I'm like not to click as I'll think I have to pay. That also means I'm unlikely to visit your current articles since many times when I find something I also click to the blogs main page to see new posts

    - I think of "experts exchange" - if search results link to that site I do not even bother. Just too much hassle.

    Posted By johans : Posted At 11/30/08 3:55 PM
  22. Good luck with limiting access.

    Posted By Passer By : Posted At 12/17/08 2:12 PM
  23. I see both sides of this issue. In one respect I hate the entitlement attitude and anyone feeling that they have a RIGHT to something that I own, create, or think. The words RIGHTS and ENTITLEMENT bother me immensely. That may be over simplifying it a bit but you get the point. On the other hand I happen to derive the majority of my joy in life by sharing the things I love with the people I care about (Food, music, sports, development, etc.).

    I think if I sense that people are grateful for the information I provide them, then I am happy to do so free of charge on my blog. If I ever caught a sniff of an entitled attitude, then I think I would stop blogging.

    Posted By jwopitz : Posted At 1/18/09 1:21 AM
  24. @Josh - not really a problem of moving the $$ around. You could always @twitpay @earnshavian $5 for article.

    Posted By Dan Taylor : Posted At 1/19/09 7:33 AM
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