A better business model for Websites
After reading the above I was doing some thinking (since my day work is in technology and my education is in research and analysis) that many of the issues that were pointed out could be over come with some modifications to the current way your sites are set up.
About the membership downloading all the old content – that is pretty simple fix – make the site access per month pay and view cost. If you pay for one month, you get to view one month (not all the archives) pas months can be viewed for an additional fee of a month cost in an archive section.
Think of it as any other magazine subscription – you want back issues you have to buy a copy of it, you want all past issues, you have to lay out the cash for them all. Now on could use a sliding rule on this, one month per fee, or three or whatever… the idea is to make available product at the cost that is going to pay for its production as well as a profit to make doing it worth while.
This would also avoid posted passwords as the access per pass account would only be able to download the current months issue, doing so many times over would allow quick and easy cancellation of that account/password without the entire site being raided over and over. Easy to monitor – account X has downloaded the same current month 10 times… flag it and suspend until contact with account holder. Or if you want to get fancy, include in the account pass you may download content 1, 2, 3 or however many times and that’s it for the cost. This can be done rather easily.
One thing that does not get address at all and I think should be is one of building up access – think of this – take two people. One joins the first month that the site opens and pays the whole way along – probably over $100.00 at the year mark and gets all the content (each months access every months – because they are paying for it), and the second that signs up at the end of the year for $12.00 and due to the entire content of the year being available accesses all the same product at about a 1/10 the cost. Does that sound fair like equal access? Rather it should be that this person that just paid the same per month as the first person should only receive access to 1/12th the sites content.
Also, most models don’t do it but they should make “copy”/”save” images not available as a feature when viewing the site. Someone right clicks on the image to save it – they get a “that function is unavailable as this image is copy write protected”.
There is a lot of things that when slightly changed can increase efficiency and lockdown security for much of the content and the sites access to the general public.
So, it might go like this…
Uniquely me, goes to Keisha’s site (as modified to deal with the above). I check out the membership section and decide to join the month of November 2003. The price is 12.00 for a month of access.
In the site every Monday there is an update of one set of images, and 2 movies, 1 article and access to anything submitted in that weekly update from members (morphs, comments, etc.)
I access the site and look/download one set (I only get 4 FTP downloads per this months access and so I will get to download each update 1 time only in zip format, so I don’t run up Keisha’s bandwidth bill more then necessary (and if I am a sleazy crook I can’t share out my pass and screw her out of money… which I would not ever do…FYI).
Keisha has also made thumbnails available on her site for each update but removed the old full images (to save on bandwidth, and because members can just as easily see them on there own HD – which will access them faster anyway). None of her members mind this because they still get full quality images and they don’t have to hunt and peck and wait for a download to web-view each images in a browser.
I go to the archive section and there I can buy access to past months issues of “Keisha Mega-Breasted Star” I select the first months issue as I just have to have it. I see that Keisha has a movie section of longer movies that she has made especially for download. They are longer then most and I decided I have to have “Keisha at the Bar” I can not see it… it’s a must. So I checkout and the rest is history…
…then my evil side takes over… and I Evil-Package post my access to the web on my evil web-site and let the world have access to poor Keisha’s site. Little does evil me know that I can only share Nov access to the world (Smart Keisha laughs as the world of evil-doer-er-er’s (!@$*(&#?
) attempts to access content and find nothing the first 3 additional accessed get a copy of November 2003 and the rest get nothing.
Evil-Me is defeated and Keisha is safe and secure… months later she posts a new update – “Keisha, new big busted model has altercation with Chelsea Charms!” (Full Story) Apparently both models were at CES when suddenly my Keisha’s left bra strap gave way and her 10,000cc left breast erupted from the cup, rolling out and crushing Ms. Charms (Oh, the humanity of it all…) Ms. Charms is currently listed in fair condition after paramedics freed her from under the breast with a new device called the hoist of life (designed for CES events after the fatal crushing of several Maxi Mounds fans in 2002).
(I really should spend less time on the pc…lol)