As the web extended beyond being a virtual newspaper, the idea of revenue streams beyond advertising had already taken shape. However, while advertising has maintained its position as the chief source of revenue for many publishers, other avenues haven’t really picked up. Especially in the content niche, blogs almost all have been purely dependent on advertising, while major publications at least banked on paid content, for instance WSJ. NYTimes on its part began as a paid resource then changed to advertising driven and were earlier this year contemplating moving back to being a paid resource.
Essentially, somewhere between advertising and paid subscription for content that was otherwise free a huge gap (or an opportunity) was formed in the last 4-5 years. Except of course for a few MLM products that have occasionally done rounds of the web. GigaOm today announced a new product quite different from what we are used to hearing. GigaOm network today launched GigaOm Pro a research and analysis service for the tech niche.
So what is GigaOm pro?
In Om Malik’s words:
GigaOM Pro, a subscription-only service that allows you access to research and analysis by a team of GigaOM analysts, editorial curators and our in-house editorial team. The service is being introduced at $79 a year and is available at http://pro.gigaom.com.
It is basically divided into four parts and it will offer subscribers access to Weekly Updates, editorial features called “Long Views”, Quarterly Wrap-ups, and Research Briefings and Notes from the GigaOM Analyst Network.
The website is actually built on Buddypress of which we had spoken about last week here at WATBlog. In my post I had mentioned how the system would be useful for websites which want to create a community driven setup. Buddypress gives options that large blogs didn’t have before, that it is to build a community around itself. The network is essentially a mini community of users, contributors in that particular niche. These were my words then, and now with GigaOm Pro I have a better example to show.
Anyway, the fact that it runs on Buddypress is not the important point. The point to note is a paid product on a blog and how effective would it be? I am a firm believer in the value of content driven websites and I have often said this and the value is often decided by the users. At $79 a year, it doesn’t burn a huge hole in the pocket of anyone for whom it is important to connect the huge number of dots the web throws everyday, and so if the product doesn’t perform they can stop using it. In any case the regular readers of the Giga Om network won’t be affected or undervalues in anyway as the content here is different.
To conclude I am really happy to see a new model being tested to build revenue on a blog network. I am a big believer in content play and I think steps like these will further cement its scope and scale as a business. The success of this product might help a lot of content driven players in choosing a similar path, which is better than being dependent on advertising as the past few months have shown.
For those interested I think this is a good time to check up on the interview we had done with Om Malik when he was in India for Wordcamp.
