What is Smashing Magazine doing??
March 22, 2010
It’s happening right now and it’s an interesting exercise in monetizing online content. Smashing Magazine, which provides oodles of FREE content to designers and programmers, has interrupted their regularly scheduled web site to bring you this: a plea for funds. They say they will hock this eBook for 24 hours, asking less than $10 for it. Until then, readers cannot access the site. At all.
@SmashingMag has been fielding tweets from perturbed readers all day. Other readers are tweeting their support.
What do you think about this exercise in monetizing content?
–Jen Smith, Creative Director, Network Media Partners
Filed under: Uncategorized
3 Comments Leave a Comment
1. Carrie Hartin | March 23, 2010 at 9:25 am
Interesting approach. I would not put my $$ that this will help support a long term “stay in business model” for Smashing Magazine. Content, Knowledge, Access – I believe that people will pay for it. They will pay for it through subscription models, membership models, and pay per download models that are emerging.
All of that being said, I just contributed to NPR’s annual fund drive. In many ways, the same thing that Smashing is attempting to do. Public radio and TV have worked off of this solicitation approach for many (tough) years. Locally, radio stations like WYPR are doing the same thing. They provide great access to music that you can not find on any other station. To me, its valuable. Its worth contributing $ to be part of the community.
2. sdr | March 23, 2010 at 10:08 am
Agreed on all of Carrie’s points above. I don’t mind so much that they are asking for users to pay for their content, as I am totally in favor of ‘putting up walls’ online and reframing content as a valuable commodity. My issue is the way they are doing it. What if I use the site regularly but don’t particularly want that book? I think their approach should be less short-term. They should either go a subscription model, pay per download or continually solicit donations (per the NPR example from Carrie). Regardless, it will be interesting to see what they gain from this experiment.
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