Author: Minal Bopaiah - Page 63 - Subscription Insider

Has Apple Gone to the Dark Side With iBooks 2.0?

Previously, Paywall Times had praised Apple for its iBooks 2.0 software, that’s really quite revolutionary and intuitive. Like a good Jedi, it promised to serenity in the epublishing world, restoring balance to our lives. We were in love and not heeding that small voice telling us to curb our enthusiasm. But it looks like Apple may be as conflicted as Anakin Skywalker, easily seduced by the dark side of greed. Close reading of their user end licensing…

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A Tale of Two Ecommerce Sites: When They Work & When They Don’t

Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

When The Boston Globe split off from Boston.com last year, the Globe hogged all the financial glory with their paywall (and smart re-design). Boston.com was left with the corporate equivalent of spousal support.But Boston.com rallied and has played to its strengths as a lifestyle website. It eschewed the paywall Model and branched into ecommerce by selling sports tickets online. Some journalists may call it a conflict of interest, but 21st century journalists know the difference…

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Can You Sell Used Content Online? Capitol Records and ReDigi Battle It Out

Subscriber Only, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

In the real-world, reselling used books and CDs is not only legal, but the way most of us got through college. But what does a re-sell Model look like in the virtual world? EMI’s Capitol Records is currently seeking an injunction against ReDigi, a start-up that claims to sell “used” digital tracks. The site scans user’s hard drives to make sure their digital tracks were bought legally, lets users upload them to the site, and then…

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How to Make Subscriptions Work: ‘Be Better Than Free’

FInance, Industry Announcements, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Subscription sites are growing by the month (if not week), and here are some interesting launches and acquisitions we thought you’d want to know about: The Indie label Stones Throw just launched a subscription service by which members would get ever song/album they released delivered to their Inbox Hitch.me lets singles date by ‘hitching’ into their LinkedIn profile. The site has only three questions: two about finance and one about what type of car you drive (which,…

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Lessons from Sesame Street: Designing Digital Content for Children

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

Ebooks now make up 11% of sales for children’s books, and seems to be a growing preferred platform for the little ones. Furthermore, the durability of tablets have made parents more apt to share their digital devices with children or hand down their old ones. This is backed up by additional research showing that tablet usage soars during prime-time and just before bed. So if you’re targeting the 0-8 age group and their parents, it’s…

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Social Media: Great for Customer Service, Bad for Marketing

Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

A new study surveying consumers’ social media use had 64% of respondents saying they “hate” it when brands target them through social media.At the same time, 55% like contacting brands through social media to give them feedback. They also like it when a brand has a page or site, especially if the page has coupons and discounts.What’s the takeaway? Let your social media be a lighthouse, steadily attracting traffic but not wading in the waters…

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Google Starts Penalizing Sites With Too Many Ads Above the Fold

Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Just to keep us all on our toes, Google is adding one more ranking feature to its search optimization terms — the number of ads above content on a page.Afters users expressed frustration with sites that place an inordinate number of ads “above the fold” and bury content, Google has decided to penalize sites that do so.The good news is that Google estimates this will affect only 1% of sites, and Paywall Times readers who…

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Apple’s New iBook Format Aims For Schools But Appeals To Many

Business Media and Publishing, Subscriber Only, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

Back when the most basic Kindle cost more than $300, I got one (largely thanks to my mom watching Oprah rave about it). Back then, I said it’s a nice way to read fiction, but cumbersome for anyone who likes to underline passages, write in margins, and then refer to those markings later on – i.e., anyone that writes nonfiction. What it would be GREAT for is high school and college students who read a…

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Less is More When It Comes To Designing Call-To-Action Pages

Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

I once gave a presentation on harnessing the power of media for social good, and one of my key points is that less is more. I’m glad to see I’m in good company. More designers are not adopting the same philosophy when it comes to Web design.The Web seems to be burdened by the same excessive wordiness that plagued newspapers back at the turn of the last century (that’s 1900, not 2000). Look at how…

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Paid Search Increases in 2011, Yahoo-Bing Alliance Gaining Ground on Google

Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Marketing professionals will be happy to hear recent data that backs up their water-cooler hunches: marketers in the US and UK spent more on paid search advertising in the last quarter of 2011 than Q4 of 2010. Similar growth is expected throughout 2012.And while Google maintained a cool 80% of market share, Search Engine Journal claims that 30% of all US-searches are through Bing. Plus, the Yahoo and Bing alliance (Yahoo is now powered by…

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Insight to drive subscription growth

Minal Bopaiah

Has Apple Gone to the Dark Side With iBooks 2.0?

A Tale of Two Ecommerce Sites: When They Work & When They Don’t

Can You Sell Used Content Online? Capitol Records and ReDigi Battle It Out

How to Make Subscriptions Work: ‘Be Better Than Free’

Lessons from Sesame Street: Designing Digital Content for Children

Social Media: Great for Customer Service, Bad for Marketing

Google Starts Penalizing Sites With Too Many Ads Above the Fold

Apple’s New iBook Format Aims For Schools But Appeals To Many

Less is More When It Comes To Designing Call-To-Action Pages

Paid Search Increases in 2011, Yahoo-Bing Alliance Gaining Ground on Google

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