Author: Brian Hood - Page 2 - Subscription Insider

ChargeBee Seeks to Improve Subscription Billing

Business Strategy, News, Payment Processing, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Retention, Technology / Brian Hood

Following in the footsteps of payment processing pioneers like Stripe, recurring billing company ChargeBee has its sights set on becoming the go-to recurring billing solution for SaaS startups. Founded in 2011 and based in India, the company recently raised $5 million in venture capital funding to bring their total funding level to $6.5 million. CEO and co-founder Krish Subramanian claims that ChargeBee now processes $100 million annually for its customers. ChargeBee was created to fill a gap…

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Are Rising Prices Also to Blame for Declining Newspaper Circulation?

Business Strategy, News, Paywall, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps / Brian Hood

In recent years the precipitous drop in newspaper circulation has been due in no small part to the shift from physical to digital consumption via computers and mobile devices. Yet the decline in circulation has another layer to it – rising prices for both newspaper subscriptions and for single copies at the newsstand. The pricing decisions of major newspaper companies reflect their desire to stem the losses from the attrition of their print subscribers. Yet attempts…

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SubscriptMe Takes the Hassle Out of Managing Subscriptions

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology / Brian Hood

A new app that’s hit the iOS app market aims to make sense of the many subscriptions consumers often sign up for and then promptly forget about. Two Boston-based entrepreneurs, Ben Rothman and Scott Judson, have created Subscriptme, an app that allows users to manage their digital subscriptions. The app has a simple interface that tracks subscriptions, manages bills, offers ratings and reviews of other subscription services, and provides recommendations for other subscriptions that the user may enjoy. “We…

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Adobe Debuts Next Generation of Programmatic Marketing Tools

Business Services, Industry Announcements, News, Paywall, Subscriber Acquisition / Brian Hood

At this week’s Adobe Summit, Adobe’s annual Digital Marketing conference, the company unveiled upgrades to Adobe Marketing Cloud, its suite of marketing subscription cloud-based products. Adobe Marketing Cloud is a personalized content marketing engine with eight tightly integrated marketing solutions, including analytics, web and app experience management, testing and targeting, advertising, audience management, video, social engagement and campaign orchestration. According to Adobe, the explosion of marketing channels has created a fragmented and technologically complicated landscape that can…

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Game Developers Are Liberating Their Subscription Models

Business Strategy, News, Paywall, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology / Brian Hood

At this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, two of the foremost video game developers disrupted the gaming world. Developers Epic Games and Unity said they would be modifying their existing subscription schemes with free entry-level access to their proprietary game engines Game engines are the behind-the-scenes platforms that power video game development and operations. The announcements are a clear indication that both of these companies are in close competition to be “the platform of…

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Vurb Seeks to Challenge Google with Better Mobile Context

Industry Announcements, News, Subscription Apps, Technology / Brian Hood

Subscription businesses may have one more thing to worry about in their SEO initiatives with Vurb, a four-year-old startup with high hopes for redefining the way we use mobile to search the web. Founder Bobby Lo seeks to bridge the gap between search engines and mobile apps by presenting contextual answers to queries, uniting both the information of search and the functionality of apps. Lo built Vurb around the “Vurb Card,” which in his own words is…

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Comcast Shrugs After Shedding 194,000 Cable Subscribers

Business Strategy, Entertainment and Streaming, News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology / Brian Hood

The long decline in cable television subscriptions continued in 2014, according to yearly numbers released this week by Comcast. For the year, Comcast reported that it ended the year with 22.3 million cable television customers, a loss of 194,000 for the year. Despite this, it added 6,000 video customers in the fourth quarter. Ironically, the loss of 194,000 subscribers was the cable giant’s best showing since 2007, when it peaked at around 25 million subscribers before…

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The Mobile Commerce Era Has Arrived, Says PayPal and Ipsos

Business Strategy, News, Payment Processing, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps, Technology / Brian Hood

Newly released research by PayPal and market research firm Ipsos shows just how dramatically mobile commerce is moving ahead of traditional online commerce. For subscription businesses who have not adjusted product, conversion and payment strategies to account for this trend, they better start moving fast. According to the study of 17,600 consumers in 22 countries, as smartphones have become somewhat ubiquitous over the last five years, purchasing on mobilenow accounts for 20% of overall worldwide ecommerce…

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The Irish Times Bets Big On Digital Subscriptions

Business Strategy, News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps / Brian Hood

Next Monday The Irish Times is implementing a metered subscription offering, becoming the first Irish paper ensconced behind a paywall since the paper abandoned its last version in 2001. Visitors to the website will be able to browse stories on IrishTimes.com but will be limited to viewing only 10 articles per month. It is akin to the metered paywall the New York Times implemented in 2011 that’s proven somewhat successful in curbing a once-precipitous decline. Research by…

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Will Tinder’s Premium Subscription Cannibalize Its Popularity?

Business Strategy, News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology / Brian Hood

The most popular dating app of the last few years may be the author of its own downfall. Tinder, which launched in 2013 and has grown exponentially in popularity ever since, has been testing a subscription service in Europe and the results have not been good. Tinder’s immense popularity is from the almost game-like ease of use that requires only a right screen swipe to express approval of a potential date (or a left swipe to disapprove).…

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Insight to drive subscription growth

Brian Hood