Will your kids pay for online content?
In Sweden we have a magazine for kids called “KamratPosten” (freely translated to “Buddy Magazine”). It’s been around for about 115 years and has been a magazine with a reputation of publishing high quality content for kids. Two years ago they took the next step into the digital era and launched a web site. It was a community-based site with quality content, games and supervised forums. This saturday they will take the next difficult step – getting payed for online content. November 1, 2009, KamratPosten will shut down for 48 hours to be relaunched as a paying visitors-only web site – it will be a gated community.
KamratPosten has listed a number of arguments for this, where the main argument is that they cannot afford to run a high-quality web site for free anymore. They have paid the web site using the profits from the paper magazine, and realized that this arrangement must come to an end. They also turned down the possibility to use ads, which was a logical decision. Advertising and kids is a legal jungle and you have to tread very careful to make it work. KamratPosten has also built a strong brand on trust and honesty and bringing in external advertisers would jeopardize their brand.
KamratPosten now makes a very interesting case for anyone looking at how to charge for online content, mainly because they bring a new dish to the table. The kids – your kids. You may not be willing to pay for news online, but are you willing to pay for a safe playground for your kids. Maybe you cannot charge for the content, but it will be interesting to see if you can charge for the safety.
The cost for a subscription will be equivalent to that of buying a large ice cream every month. How many ice creams are you prepared to sacrifice for high quality content and safe zones for your kids?
The original article can be found here (only in Swedish): http://kpwebben.se/artiklar/2009/snart-smaller-det/
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So, what’s all this about then. First off, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jens Ode, born 1973 in the southern part of Sweden. As the son of an artist, Petter Pettersson (amongst others represented at the Nationalmuseum)...
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I guess I would be less sensitive to price when it comes to my kids, yes. The question is whether only Kamratposten will be able to offer a reasonably ”safe” place. If Swedish television continues with their approach to kids, I think there will be a free alternative with rather good content as well. At the price of an ice cream, though – I guess I would pay.
Yes, I also thought of SVT (Swedish state television) as the ”free” alternative. They got a sweet deal – you already pay for their services through the taxes. They are kind of cheating
The difference is that SVT targets children a bit younger and they don’t feature any communities yet, and the communities are the dealbreaker for this kind of sites. There are a bunch of other free community alternatives, but as a parent I would be happy to pay for an entire box of ice cream to ensure that my kids can play on the fotball field or the playground instead of on the freeway.
…and in flies Disney with their Penguin Club, MTG, NewsCorp etc, all with free ”safe” alternatives. I guess you forgot the real reason they have to charge for it; they have almost no other revenue streams. Ads for kids don’t work, you can’t upsell etc etc. They are backed into a corner now when their subscribtion payments have taken a nose dive.
Always make sure you back up your internet strategies with at least 5 different revenue streams. Jens know what I’m talking about…