An interesting vantage point on the atmosphere AXC and so many other companies are dealing with right now. There is a funny sportswriter, Bill Simmons who calls himself the Boston Sports Guy ...he is packing in his site on Digital Boston....some excerpts from his comments. Things are going to change economically on the net...as Bramson mentioned in his annual letter. They have to.
<< ....Look, my ultimate goal has always been to reach as many people as possible. And hey, some of you might argue that I was on the road to getting that done. And listen, nobody wanted it to happen more than me. Fine, fine, fine. But here's a newsflash for you: Internet content sites aren't making enough money, folks!!!!! Sure, I would love to have created an alternative Boston sports site with my columns, links, guest columns, message boards, maybe even a traveling reporter and so on... but guess what? That stuff costs money, kids! And with Internet ad money dryng up faster than Lauren Hutton, it's impossible to launch a site like that without 1) corporate backing or 2) making it a pay site.
Q. Was the demise of the BSG site another example of the end of the Free Internet Era?
In a way... yes. Maybe this site folded for different reasons than most, but I probably would have remained at Digital City had they found a way to make my site more lucrative. And I'm not talking about money for me as much as money for someone who could have helped me out with posting columns and links, or a couple of interns who could have done all the nitty-gritty stuff for me (sifting through e-mails, finding links and so on), not to mention extra cash to spend on advertising and promotion. It's funny, you would think that a website which averaged over 50,000 hits per day during the week, appealed to a hardcore group of sports fans (mostly male) between the ages of 18 and 35 and built an audience that increased every month would be fighting off sponsors... but that wasn't the case. Internet advertisers are dropping like flies, for the simple reason that people never click on those banners.
What's happening here is an electronic version of Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest." First of all, the days of cruising through the 'Net and finding free site after free site are pretty much done. Look at all the high--profile indie sites that disappeared over the past months -- Athlete's Direct, SportsTalk.com, HoopsTV, Suck.com, Feed.com, Baseball America, Rivals.com, Quokka.com, etc. -- and understand that the list will keep growing by the week. All of those sites were GOOD sites and they couldn't make it. I think we'll remember 1997-2000 as the glory days of the Internet, when things resembled an all-you-can-eat buffet and you could pick and choose whatever you wanted to read.
Within two years, you're going to have to pay for everything you read online... and I mean, everything, including all newspapers (yeah, it's true), the major sports sites and so on. That will weed out the subpar sites and leave only the mega-sites standing. And if you think this isn't going to happen, you're fooling yourself.
For instance, for the last two years, the Boston Herald lost $4 a week from me because I read the sports section and Inside Track gals online every day. Over 52 weeks, that averages out to $208. If there were tens of thousands of people just like me -- and I'm sure there were -- that's an insane amount of lost revenue that came about only because their content was available online for free. Why do you think the Boston Globe is currently offering buyouts to 800 veteran employees right now? I can't believe they haven't realized that they could charge a premium price for their online content (say $99.95) and drive locals back to buying the paper every day (not to mention, such a move would force out-of-towners to pony up for the online subscription, so in theory, they might actually make MORE money then they did ten years ago).
As for me... well, I don't know. The thought of making people pay for my site gives me the heebie jeebies. It just doesn't feel right. But if that was the only way I could keep the BSG site alive in some form, or if that was the only way I could remain online... well, I'd have to examine it. Is there a way to create some sort of uber-BSG site, where I could concentrate on my columns, hire interns to help with the links, hire an editor to help with administrative stuff, build message boards and roto leagues and charge something like $15 per subscription for the whole thing? Yeah, probably. I just wonder if people are ready to accept the idea that they would have to pay for something that they used to get for free. That's the giant "X-factor." In two years, when everything's not free, it will probably be a moot point.
Anyway, it's an interesting subject and I'm sure I'll be battling it in my head over the next few months. Stay tuned...>> |
