Dave Morin

Good post, I concur that these sites are creating great things. They are adding value to our lives and should be paid revenue for it.

One question though. Are you suggesting that sites such as Dopplr should charge everyone? Or should the adopt a fremium model?

It actually isn't clear to me yet which model will reign supreme. I think Dopplr could get away with an entirely subscription model with a simple trial period. They could also go with a freemium model.

I do think there is a market for subscription only, super high quality applications.

I think Dopplr is great just from looking at it. I have never used it, but they attract an audience which I think would be quite willing to part with their money for the usefulness of this service.

im a HUGE dopplr fan but I dont know if I would pay for the current service. If dopplr offered travel deals for paid members that would be a difference story. How much do you think you would you pay monthly/yearly for the service as it stands today?

Excellent post Dave – good to see you updating this place again!
Dopplr is a brilliant app, and I'd pay for it as well. Also, wouldn't this be a way of separating the wheat from the chaff? With costs for an app being so low now, maybe this could work.
What about user acceptance though? Everybody expects apps to be free now – you'd have to have a huge following already to confidently start charging. The backlash could be immense

I could definitely see a syndicated (and prettier, “dopplrized”) version of Kayak's data somewhere on there…

yeh likewise – i dont think Dopplr has enough to warrant a subscription fee. (or maybe i'm missing something).

Just wanted to add my vote is advertising / freemium model is what works.

Check out my post on http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/spi… for an excellent advertising support application.

cheers,
Dean

I realize it is a bold statement at this point to suggest that Dopplr
has everything that make it worthy of subscription. But, if they
continue directionally with all of the great things they are doing I'm
sure they will begin to add some of all of these great suggestions and
more. If my subscription fee now helps them get there faster, I think
that's awesome.

Thanks Louis! And everyone for stopping by to have a conversation. I'm going to be posting more often here and looking forward to more awesome conversations around great ideas and technology.

Sure, sure, sure. But the problem is customer acquisition costs. That is why web2.0 companies give away their product. And that's especially a problem for site's building networks, where you may need a large critical mass before your service is really useful.

BTW, Disqus's implementation of FB connect is broken due a cross-domain issue (disqus v davemorin.com)

This has to do with Safari's third party cookie settings. Not to worry, we're releasing an update that will fix this.

Good posting.
Here is my 2 cents..
Facebook can make a lot of money by charging $1 per user for annual subscription. If the site is only getting traffic that ignore ads, how else can you survive?

I would also happily pay for Dopplr in the range of $20 per year. Dopplr is my calendar for anything over a few weeks away.

Very interesting post about one of the fundamental question about the web economy.

I think there is a place for subscription only, high-end quality applications. For other quality products, the freemium model is the best way in the future.

Ads-sponsored only websites can't survive in long term. The ads market is not enough big to absorb all the websites.

The best example is Google : free/ads-sponsored service for the public and paid-subscription for business (the new challenge of the company).

But we can't forget the relation between web and subscription. How many people are ready to pay a service on the web? I think a very little percentage because for many persons the web is the place where everything is free even those which are not in high-street shops.

Dopplr doesn't have nearly enough adoption amongst my friends for me to derive any real value from it. At the most basic level you can use it to chart your own course, but what I'd be willing to pay for is an app that helps me bump into old friends as I travel for business–and that is a critical mass functionality. It doesn't do that today, and if it charges, it most likely won't pick up enough users to ever accomplish that .

I feel the exact same way about Pandora. It's a product I love and would absolutely pay for. And I am surprised that more traditional media outlets aren't banding together as an industry to make people have to pay even a very low cost for subscriptions to newspapers or magazines whose content resides online. Especially when it comes to thoughtful, well-researched news content, eventually we're all going to get what we pay for–which is nothing.

I wouldn't pay yet. The service is good but still needs to add more value to charge for it. This can come out of having more users on it. Besides, if I had to pay for it, I wouldn't place any contents for free for them. This is one option: charge to people who don't add any content.

Great analyze, your post make my brain brighter.
Thanks.

I would gladly pay a yearly subscription for Dopplr at a fair price point. So this is my call to the Dopplr team. As I look out across the web landscape, they are mocospace.com the shining light that could help start an important trend. I urge them to consider.

Although the best things in life are free, there are exceptions to this “rule”. You can have those freebies as a consolation but there are things that have cost in itself and we should understand this.

What I can say is very nice and helpful as well as informative post…really help me very much more!!

Thanks..
Cheers,
sweethomeimprove.com
sain-web.com

I do agree ho things go viral so fast and how effective Social Media Marketing Package can transform things.

I think a lot of sites that have services like this are going to start charging quite a bit of money. The services are great though so I think a lot of people would really continue to pay and use all of them.
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