Apparently, there's no money in content, nor broadband, nor supplying us pernickety customers. I beg to differ.....
This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com
Here's what I would expect from my dumb fat pipe as extra that I would pay, in total, £10 a month for.
Currently, I get all these things for free. But I started my own business at 8 years old. You have to be sustainable. So, make money...find the customers who actually value what you do and are willing to pay.
What would I pay for? Let's get this clear though...you as an ISP cannot re-invent the wheel as I won't buy it. I want the tools I like today, some of which I have been using for well over a decade now in one form or another. You, as my fat pipe supplier, won't see a bean from moi, but this should help you make the right strategic partnerships and form JVs...perhaps.
1) Delicious
Look, I know I saved/bookmarked it but where? I use at least 3 browsers on every computer I am on. I have 4 of my own computers plus access to untold others. I need my bookmarks, going back years, in the cloud. I've used Del.icio.us since it launched. I know what you have bookmarked of mine and I want to keep it where I can find it, please.
2) WebMail
Same as above, but access to emails.And if in a few years I have hammered this Gmail account and done 7GB, even deleting all the big files, then I'll pay you to guard my emails and let's hope the storage limit now I'm paying is waaaaaay bigger. (Oh look, $3 and I get 27GB for a year, nice!)
3) Twitter
Yep, it has its uses, without a doubt. I'll pay £1 a month as I have already earned plenty from it via my guest blogs. And then there is the value of the people I have met (social more than £££s).
4) Youtube, Flickr etc
For several reasons
a) late nights, working alone, can't face getting up to find music - pick one song, leave it to jukebox me
b) marketing for my clients, YT is the place to put videos/photo/audio without explaining how to spell vimeo, flickr etc
c) Personal - how easy can it be to upload a video/photo/podcast and send it to friends and family?
5) Data storage/back up etc
If only I was on a decent connection....I'd pay for someone to hold my data somewhere else, just in case for resilience/redundancy. Until we get broadband, I simply can't upload it but...I'm working on that broadband issue. (One day, people will understand this campaign has NOTHING to do with downloads). And when I say back up, I mean my mobile too as well as all my computers.
6) Remote Access
How many times is that file I need on the computer at home, or one of the sprogs' computers?
Yep, remote secure back up is worth a quid each month. I use it every time I'm travelling.
7) Facebook & Social Networks
OK, I admit it, I like the chance to vent to my friends, play utterly pointless games like Mousehunt, and check my kids are still alive. LinkedIn matters before meetings too - who is s/he?
8) Blogger / WordPress
I can't imagine now not having a Just Add Water type tool to create a website on the fly for my latest interest.
9) LiveStreaming
The place to point your mobile when you want to show an event you are at with others who can't be there. Be it Qik or Livestream or similar. I'd definitely pay £1 a month for this, even if I was agoraphobic.
10) I'm missing one! What would be your top "I'll pay a quid a month" app for basic internet usage?
We'll get onto business apps shortly, so chuck your ideas at me.
[Product placement is welcome on 5tth now it's legal in the UK - want to push your service? Get in touch]
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8 comments:
I would pay a quid a month for a live chat facility for our community helpline. I would also pay a quid for skype, its the only way I get to see my long distance friends and relatives.
Others are asking the same question, coincidentally
so please tell him too!
Considering the value I receive from Facebook and Twitter, I would definitely pay to use them. A pound a month would be fantastic value but I'm not sure what my upper limit would be. If many of the people I engage with were to stop using Facebook and Twitter though due to a cost implication, then the value would instantly decrease, meaning I would be willing to pay less.
I am not very techie, but I believe if we had our own network we could use femtocells or something and all our mobiles would work? If this was county wide it has to be worth more than £1 a month?
If we set up a network where all mobile calls made within the network were free, it would be worth £20 a month to most families and businesses surely?
Also tv, with a dumb pipe we could get all the tv we wanted, no messing with rural masts to try to pick up a few channels, no massive aerials shaking our chimneys. No trips to buy dvds. what would that be worth?
Now, £1 per month extra over what you pay today, I would have thought your No 1 choice would have been decent Broadband wherever I go and wherever I happen to be - £1 per month for 40Mbps to my laptop while in the car sounds brilliant.
@PC-F: I think I covered that in my first paragraph. This is what I would pay for on my dumb fat pipe.........we're talking apps and services here.
@robert pickstone
I was just listing a few things I would be willing to pay £1 a month for that I currently get for free. IN a world where companies such as Twitter and Facebook struggle to make the business case, I thought it would be quite fun to look at what might be worth paying for.
I absolutely agree about the upper limit - I set mine at £1/month. It was a deliberate choice ie within everyone's reach.
If some of the people who currently haunt many of the apps and services we use were forced out by £1/month, I can't say I'd miss them!
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