In the TC article Mike Arrington references Dave Morin's use of Letter.ly (a 'premium content' subscription service) as the inspiration for Rose to set up Foundation.
What's interesting is that 3 months in and only 5 posts later (remember, at $3.99/month) Dave has most recently published a post simply titled "Apology" (http://letter.ly/davemorin). No idea exactly what it contains because of course you have to subscribe but one can speculate and it does seem telling.
BTW this isn't a slight at Dave M - he took a chance on this (I think Letter.ly founder Sam Lessin and him are good pals) and it didn't work out - esp with the launch of Path. No biggie.
However, I fail to see how this is a good inspiration on Roses part to set up Foundation.
Finally, producing video is expensive (he probably has a camera man, there's editing time, hosting, etc) - I can't really see how this pays off either. You are in that weird position where $3.99 is going to create a chasm for many folks yet you'd have to sell quite a lot of subs to make it work financially.
It all ends up on Revision 3 (after the first week) anyhow so it's just more content for them to monetize like they do their other videos. His cameraman is also his regular Rev3 guy Graham. http://twitter.com/#!/grahamhancock/status/22008135078125568
The 'Apology' note was about using the platform for promoting a non-profit instead of regular content.
I do wonder, also, if these paywalls can work. My initial thought was that the money would incentivise the content creators in a way that blogging doesnt, but a similar abandonment of regular writing is apparent in the letterly newsletters I have looked at.
What's interesting is that 3 months in and only 5 posts later (remember, at $3.99/month) Dave has most recently published a post simply titled "Apology" (http://letter.ly/davemorin). No idea exactly what it contains because of course you have to subscribe but one can speculate and it does seem telling.
BTW this isn't a slight at Dave M - he took a chance on this (I think Letter.ly founder Sam Lessin and him are good pals) and it didn't work out - esp with the launch of Path. No biggie.
However, I fail to see how this is a good inspiration on Roses part to set up Foundation.
Finally, producing video is expensive (he probably has a camera man, there's editing time, hosting, etc) - I can't really see how this pays off either. You are in that weird position where $3.99 is going to create a chasm for many folks yet you'd have to sell quite a lot of subs to make it work financially.