Wanna-Have Content Sells...When It Gets Personal

摘要

In the never-ending campaign to convert users of free Internet content to paid subscribers one mantra emerged in the first decade of the Web: onliners will pay only for content that makes or saves them money...or involves sex. The rather lonely successes of WSJ.com, ConsumerReports.org, and Danni's Hard Drive in those early years stood as pillars of this wisdom. But as we have covered in this column with companies like AmericanGreetings.com, Match.com, and Classmates.com, that early model is beginning to shift. In addition to "gotta-have" products, consumers are starting to pay up for compelling, well-packaged "wanna-have" content. Nevertheless, selling wanna-have content requires more merchandising skills than many Web sites may have. If paid content has a veteran who has seen the model work across many categories, it is Jonathan Lewin, CEO of eMeta, which has provided both the fulfillment back end as well as consulting services to the likes of New York Times Digital, Financial Times, Hoovers.com, and many others. Lewin believes that consumers are ready to open their wallets for content they want rather than need, and he points to the online version of the New York Times crossword puzzle ($5.95 a month) as a model of turning wanna-have into gotta-have product.