Author: Minal Bopaiah - Page 62 - Subscription Insider

Piano Media’s National Paywall: Torch-bearer or Red Herring?

If you haven’t already heard, the country of Slovakia has a national paywall. And it’s defying expectations.Piano Media, headed by Tomas Bella, has created a one-access paywall for nine of the country’s largest publishers, giving subscribers access to 34 different websites. It’s the cable TV-style of payment that I’ve been evangelizing for a while now.There was much resistance to the paywall — more so from jaded publishers than paying subscribers. But Piano seems to have…

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Inkling Habitat Competes With Apple iBooks by Wooing Publishers

Business Media and Publishing, Subscriber Only, Subscription Apps / Minal Bopaiah

For amateur and self-employed publishers, Apple iBooks may be your digital publishing platform of choice, but publishers producing ebooks at scale seem to be excited about Inkling Habitat, a new cloud-based publishing platform.Inkling Habitat lets users incorporate HD video, interactive features and 3D content through its free program. Users are then required to make the finished product available through the Inkling store (available through an iPad app and through the Inkling website), through which Inkling…

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Launch News: Verizon, Redbox, BSkyB, & Apple Get Into the TV Business

Entertainment and Streaming, Industry Announcements, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Through partnerships and new ventures, it appears that the online video streaming business is really taking off.Just last week, three companies announced their plans to launch streaming video services. Verizon and Redbox are partnering for a U.S. based subscription service, while across the pond, BSkyB is planning to launch a streaming service that has both a subscription and pay-as-you-go plan.And in related news, rumors are flying that Apple is planning on creating its own smart…

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GigaOM Buys paidContent Parent Company From The Guardian

FInance, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

The technology media company GigaOM just announced that it has acquired ContentNext Media, the parent company of paidContent, from Guardian News and Media.The move will likely benefit GigaOM, as technology and digital publishing go hand-in-hand. But it might hurt Guardian News and Media (GNM), who seems quixotically determined to make free, all-access content work — in the UK and US. GNM has formally stated that it’s selling paidContent and its sister sites — including contentSutra.com…

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Only 30% of U.S. Consumers Willing To Pay For Cloud Storage

FInance, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

That’s according to a new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. While 90% of the 502 U.S. consumers who were polled look favorably on cloud storage, few are willing to pay to host their data/information in a cloud.And why should they? Cloud storage is a delivery system, but also crosses the line into a medium (i.e., streaming is different than downloading a video). Asking consumers if they’ll pay for cloud storage is liking asking them if they’ll pay…

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Academic Journals Enter The Fray on ‘Fair Use’ User-Generated Content

Business Services, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Unlike most online publications, academic journals have almost always been exclusively behind a pawall. Sometimes that paywall was propped up by universities and research institutions, making the content free to students and researchers (or bundled in your tuition plan, depending how you look at it). But they have been able to weather the “free ride” storm better than most print publications.That may be changing as a number of notable academics are calling for an “Academic…

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Subscription Ideas That Will Probably Fail

Business Strategy, Industry Announcements, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

We often feature ideas that are working in the subscription industry, but today I thought we could pause to consider two ideas that are likely to fail.The first is the move from Merriam-Webster to implement a Freemium Model, making it possible for you to find a definition of “trilobite” but not “poaceae.” When you look up the latter, it takes you to a conversion page with a free 14-day offer and then a monthly subscription…

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Launch News: ‘The Daily Thrive’ Helps Women Balance Life & Work

Industry Announcements, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

This month, The Daily Thrive joined the community of subscription-based coaching services with a well-designed site that’s already capitalizing on subscription services and one-off educational products (I was personally tempted to purchase the Productivity ‘Jam Session’).The site is doing a number of things right from the start. First, I love their clean design–it’s hard to sell coaching services to decrease stress and anxiety if you’re site looks like The New York Times classifieds section (I…

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YouTube May Allow Content Creators To Create Subscription Channels

Entertainment and Streaming, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

It’s not official, but YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar recently stated that the company may soon allow original content creators to create subscription-based channels on the site.This is quite an about-face for the Google-owned company. Google’s Eric Schmidt has previously praised the virtues of free content, an easy stance to take when your business Model is wholly based on user-generated content. Then YouTube started funding its own original content to the tune of $100 million, and…

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New EMV Credit Card Technology May Increase Online Fraud

Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

MasterCard and Visa recently announced their plans to start EMV technology adoption in credit cards, 15 years after the technology was developed (it’s already been adopted in many countries, particularly in Europe).EMV (which actually stands for Europay, Mastercard and Visa) uses a digital chip to encrypt card data, much more secure than the current magnetic strips. The push will mainly be for bricks-and-mortar stores to update their technology to read the cards by 2015. However,…

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Insight to drive subscription growth

Minal Bopaiah