How to make money and influence people…

If you’ve ever wondered why this blog is called Safety in Numbers (I’m almost certain that literally none of you have done so) then now seems a good time to reveal all. As you’ll have already learned, this blog charts my efforts to establish the Cul-de-Sac webzine and explore potential business models for online journalism ventures. These models are, of course, still incredibly new and their effectiveness is far from definitively proven, which is where the phrase ’safety in numbers’ comes in; the idea being that, if we explore these issues together and share our experiences, maybe everything will turn out okay. That, and I thought it sounded quite cool.

New media business models are tricky things to grapple with, then. At JEECamp in March, guest speaker Rick Waghorn explained – with the useful assistance of a flipchart being scribbled into submission – his view for the future of online journalism enterprises such as his My Football Writer venture. Certainly, the main options, which arose from discussions during the unconference, included the following models:

• advertising
• subscription
• syndication
• sponsorship

Each of these come with their own advantages and disadvantages. The most common model used with this kind of site is the advertising model, but this raises the issue of how to make sure the advertising slots sold on the site are relevant to users. And it’s hard to think that, in a time of economic uncertainty, small music-related businesses in the West Midlands will be able to fork out for advertising space on Cul-de-Sac.

Subscription is also a tricky one, especially if you start off providing context completely free of charge. How willingly will people start to pay for something they used to get for free? I’m of the opinion that, if the service was somehow attractive enough, then people might buy into it but generally I think consumer-facing sites are unlikely to be able to survive on subscription alone, unless you really do offer people something that they can’t get anywhere else – what works for B2B titles and current affairs magazines isn’t necessarily going to work for an online music magazine as the audience is markedly different. Even then, you’re up against a seemingly prevalent attitude/expectation that information on the Internet should be free.

Industry-facing services, like Record of the Day, are perhaps more likely to lend themselves to subscription. And there’s the option of syndication too – maybe the BBC’s regional services, or other local media outlets, would be prepared to “buy” information they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to secure. As for sponsorship, I would personally be very picky about who I’d want the site to be associated with, and would be vehemently against any arrangement which compromised its editorial freedom.

The rather lovely Bearded magazine has recently launched Beardaid, where readers pay £2 per month in return for all manner of freebies while also helping cover the costs of advertising for small independent record labels. A noble premise, obviously, although I will wait with interest to see what the take-up of this offer is like – I have a bit of a problem with people subsidising the advertising for small independent labels, especially in these dark economic times, regardless of how much I might like the music released by the record label in question. I should commend Gareth, Bearded editor, for such a bold move though and the ’singles club’ style gifts which are said to come with your subscription do indeed sound impressive. Such transparency is welcome too, although as a paying customer I would want to know a bit more about what this “whole host of additional goodies” would entail, when there are so many worthy causes vying for your money.

As an additional thought, attacking formats where people are maybe more likely to part with their hard-earned cash (mobile rather than web?) might be a way forward. A recent post contributed to Paul Bradshaw’s excellent Online Journalism Blog detailed the launch of a mobile edition of Belgian women’s magazine Flair. Something powered by the cost of a text message does have potential, perhaps, although it would depend on the attitude of mobile phone users towards paying for journalistic services – online, there still seems to be some resistance, but this just shows that we need to listen to our audiences, and certainly there will need to be extensive market research conducted before we can establish whether there is a future in making money from the proposed website.