I'd Rather Be Writing » Free

The Problem of Free and the Long Tail of Content Production

Tom Johnson — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:23:24 +0000

Internet users have grown accustomed to free content. But this is not without its problems. Jeff Chandler used to produce a Weekly WordPress podcast . His last podcast, “I tried,” is dated back in December. It’s a long, tired explanation about the difficulties of pouring so much energy into an endeavor that has no substantial financial return. As he moves toward marriage and maintains a full-time job, the amount of free time he can devote to essentially a profitless hobby shrinks even more. After more than 100 podcast episodes, it seems he’s starting to change his course.

It’s no surprise to me that the podcast would come to an end (at least the recent hiatus seems to portend an end). About a year ago, I remember speaking with a friend of mine who works at WordPress. I told him they should hire Jeff on their WordPress team, because his steam would eventually run out without a sustainable income, and this podcast channel, which had a lot of momentum, would slow. My friend explained that it’s not always necessary to incorporate everyone into full-time WordPress employment to ensure their services continue. Looking back, to some degree I was right.

Recently it seems that Automattic, the leaders of WordPress, too, is also feeling the squeeze of free. According to Chandler’s last podcast, with the closure of Windows Live services, hundreds of thousands of bloggers have been signing up at WordPress.com. WordPress.com increased from 400,000 users to 900,000 users per month.

I don’t know if it’s related, but recently I noticed that Automattic started clarifying their prices for Akismet, the plugin that helps block spam. It used to be that when you signed up for a WordPress.com username, you automatically saw an Akismet API key in your profile that you could plug into your blog. I missed this idea, but apparently Akismet was a service that I should have been paying monthly fees for since the beginning. In fact, since I have more than 25,000 page views a month (my site received 57,000 page views last month), I am supposed to pay $50 a month for the Akismet service.

The following image shows the pricing model. If your site receives more than 25,000 page views per month, you have to select an enterprise commercial license starting at $50 a month.

Akismet's newly clarified pricing structure shows that if you have more than 25,000 page views a month, you have to pay $50 a month for Akismet.

That seemed steep to me, so I deactivated Akismet and am now trying out Antispambee, which so far works quite well. I also closed all comments on posts older than 60 days. Ninety-nine percent of comments on old posts are spam anyway, so this just reduces the amount of possible spam.

While of course I dislike the sudden clarification of Akismet pricing, I have to wonder if WordPress itself isn’t feeling the squeeze of free services, somewhat like Jeff with his podcast. Automattic gives a lot of software away for free, making money mostly through add-on services such as custom domain names, access to the stylesheet, and storage space. Controlling spam is a must-do task on a blog, so this is a potential money maker if they can sell it as an add on. (Without a spam blocker, I would receive about 100 spam comments a day, which would essentially kill the open commenting policy on my site.)

I had a more regular podcast on my site last year as well. I will still occasionally post a podcast, but it became clear to me more than a year ago that podcasting wasn’t my future. Listeners are far fewer than blog readers, the time required to produce a podcast is much higher, and podcasters are constantly being threatened by big media’s move into the amateur’s space. Why listen to me drone on about technical writing when you have This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker Fiction podcast, and dozens more professional podcasts in your queue?

This brings me to a larger point. More and more free content producers are going to fade away. They’re going to realize that, for the effort they put into their sites, the return isn’t worth it. Regular, sustainable content produced on a daily basis will decline.

However, because more people will start blogs and podcasts, this decline in content from the free content producers will be balanced out by the general increase in collective content. Your RSS Reader will still be full of new feeds to check out, but rather than reading through your top 20 feeds in your blogroll, you’ll read through the top posts from over 200 blog feeds. This is the long tail of content production. Fewer bloggers and podcasters producers will push out regular content because they don’t see enough return. But since there will be more content producers overall, readers won’t notice a difference.

The long tail of content production: Even though the number of new content per source decreases, the overall increase in the number of sources leads to a greater amount of overall content.

In other words, never mind that Tom only publishes 1 podcast every 3 months. You can grab podcasts from 15 other sites that are even better. Those 15 other sites may only produce 1 podcast every 3 months as well. But collectively, your iPod is still full of new podcasts to listen to. You just have more variety and more sources that you’re pulling from. Content is still free, but the sources are more varied.

Will the paid content model ever work online for amateurs? Will the influencers eventually fade away into a sea of irregular content producers spread out globally? I think so. But I am not saddened by the fact that it’s harder and harder to make money online. I like the idea that a global conversation across countries and companies and contexts is taking place. When ideas come from a greater diversity of engaged people, the information is richer and deeper.

For me, the revenue I make from my blog through ads, WordPress consulting, and speaking engagements is minimal compared to the salary from my regular job. I never entertained the idea that my blog could somehow support me and my family. Also, if I somehow did find enough revenue (possible if you’re single, live in a shared room outside of town, have no debt or car, and eat only Top Ramen noodles), I would run out of fodder for my blog without a job to keep me challenged. I would slip away from my immersion in the technical writer’s world. This world keeps me engaged and provides me with topics to blog about.

If all revenues cease from my blog, I would still find a lot of value in it, because it keeps me professionally engaged. This is why if you’re starting a blog, it’s probably best to let it accompany your career choice. With this strategy, your blog efforts always provide an indirect financial return on career growth. This indirect financial return can be an incentive that helps you keep blogging even when there seems to be little tangible reward.

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Pay-per-Content Versus Free: Char James-Tanny and Bill Swallow at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10

Tom Johnson — Fri, 07 May 2010 14:02:53 +0000

In this video, I asked Char James-Tanny and Bill Swallow to comment on the controversy over free versus pay-per-content models online, especially as it applies to STC content with the Body of Knowledge, Special Interest Groups (SIGs), and other information products.

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Why Free Is the Future of Business

Tom Johnson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:30:34 +0000

Chris Anderson’s analysis about the economy of free (or “freeconomics”) is about the most fascinating thing I’ve read in a long time. Everything on the web is trending toward free — how are companies turning free into a business model? Anderson explores various reasons for the zero cost trends and lists several strategies companies are using to turn free into a profit.

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What can Technical Authors learn from celebrity chefs and musicians? Cherryleaf Technical Authors Blog

Tom Johnson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:59:01 +0000

What can Technical Authors learn from celebrity chefs and musicians? Cherryleaf Technical Authors Blog. Ellis is a marketing genius, so I pay attention when he writes on this subject. In this post, he explores a business model behind giving away content for free. You give some content away for free, but in return collect an e-mail address that you pass to your marketing team, who then pitches products to the consumers who received the free content.

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Links Roundup: Free WordPress Themes | Shanghai Tech Writer

Tom Johnson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 04:05:42 +0000

Free WordPress Themes | Shanghai Tech Writer.

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Free Clipart and images | Quentin Brown

Tom Johnson — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:33:54 +0000

Free Clipart and images | Quentin Brown

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Why You Should Send Me (and Other Bloggers) Your Products for Free

Tom Johnson — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:37:23 +0000

In “FREE: The Economics of Abundance and the Price of Zero,” Wired magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson talks about the gift economy and how you can make products free without losing your financial return.

One idea that caught my attention was to give your products away for bloggers to review. With one of his previous books (The Long Tail, I believe), Chris says he sent out 800 copies to bloggers to review. As a result, the web was brimming with buzz and information about his book. Consequently, sales on Amazon led the market for the book.

If you have a product, don’t you want as much Google visibility as you can get? Most people search for reviews of your product on Google before pulling out their wallets. If you want to maximize your online presence, you should send out complimentary copies of your product to bloggers like me. If it’s a product within my area of interest, I’ll review it on my site. Not only will my post reach 850 people, it will also give you Google presence — sometimes on the first page if I SEO the post well.

This technique of free-giveaways-for-reviews is of course risky. You can’t give someone a free copy of a book or software with the agreement that they’ll “say something nice or else won’t say anything at all.” Sure, some people may blast your software and explain how problematic it is. But if it’s that problematic, the software will die anyway.

A while back Scott Berkun sent me a complimentary copy of his book, Myths of Innovation. At the time I was perplexed that he was sending it to me for free. Now when I search online for Myths of Innovation, I see what an astute marketing decision it was. The sheer abundance of search results makes the book look like a much-talked-about, exciting publication. Although I haven’t written an official review, I have quoted from his book several times, and I continue to excerpt from it. It’s an enjoyable read.

If you want to contact me about reviewing a product, use the contact form here or send me an email at tomjohnson1492@gmail.com.

Free Copies of SnagIt 7 and Camtasia 3

Tom Johnson — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:57:13 +0000

TechSmith is providing free downloads and licenses for copies of SnagIt 7.2 and Camtasia 3.1. The current version of SnagIt is 8.2 and Camtasia is 5. Still, for totally free software, you can’t beat this. Thanks for the tip from Jeff and Digital Inspiration:

How to you get them?

SnagIt

Step One: Download it here.

Step Two: Visit the TechSmith website here and request a registration key.

Camtasia Studio

Step One: Download it here

Step Two: Request your registration key here.

I’ve actually wanted a copy of SnagIt for a while just to capture images for blog posts. It’s easier and quicker than doing it in Photoshop. Camtasia does a wonderful job at full motion recording for screen demos.

I think TechSmith’s marketing strategy is to hook you on the older products in hopes that you’ll want to upgrade to the latest versions. Pass the word on to other tech writers.