Further reading... what do you think?

In what way did the Biznik advertising experiment fail?

I never really liked the format of MySpace or the way it worked. I think their problems stemmed from them falling out of favor rather than introducing advertising.

Dan, Wow! Thanks for explanation. That's not what I expected.

Is The Purple Cow on your Amazon click through list?

The Amazon idea is a good one although effectively it's still using the same model. It's advertising books.

What's the real difference between buying a book through a 'click through' to Amazon and buying an Airbook through a 'click through' to the Apple Store? It's just about where you place the ad and what is being sold.

I still believe that adverts (and it's all about the quality and content of the advert, or to quote Simon Cowell ' it's all about the song') for basic members is the way to generate revenue. Paid membership has it's privileges so no adverts.

People will get used to them and if the product being promoted strikes a chord with the person viewing the page, then they'll click the ad.

Advertising is advertising whether you're selling books or Rolex watches.

I think there is some good conversation going here, and knowing Dan, he is taking it all very seriously. But as he mentioned originally, this is an "experiment". Let's see how it goes...

I for one have been a "supporting" member since I joined, and I haven't found the Amazon ads distracting, or annoying.

Great discussion. Interesting that every one of the comments here are by paid members.

I would fully support a revenue stream from Amazon. As an example, I was given the title of a book (written by the person who gave it to me) in a message to me responding to a comment I make on one of the article I read. I bought the book and love it. Biznik should get a piece of that action as well.

Why not have a separate section for PAID members to list thier books and set it up so the rest of us can rate the books if we have read them, similar to articles.

Not sure how it works, but every time a member orders one of those books, Biznik would get its cut.

I'm skeptical that the Amazon scheme could ever generate enough commission to make a huge difference to the economics of Biznik. As part of a larger plan, it works well. But ultimately, Biznik needs more paid up members or it needs to generate advertising revenue... or it needs to sell stuff.

There are experiments going on everywhere you look on the web because everyone is facing the same dilemma. Too much is available for free so why should we pay for anything. It's a great argument for the consumer... a little more tricky for the service provider!

Ultimately it's a numbers game. If Biznik had 4% paid members from a 120,000 membership, revenue would be up 400% and overheads... not so much.

Have you ever noticed that when you have "skin in the game" you always put more effort and time to get the greatest value from your investment of time, money and resources?

Free has its place, but it doesn't typically deliver the goods where you need them the most, no matter what you are after or on what side of the equation you reside.

My two cents.

Just one other small issue with advertising on social media sites and Seth Godin's view.

Squidoo LLC was founded in 2005 by bestselling author, noted blogger, speaker and Original Squid, Seth Godin. Squidoo makes money from ads and affiliate links.

My view is that if it's good enough for Seth, it's good enough for me.

Interesting discussion, especially about the numbers; I had no idea, and also assumed a much higher percentages of paid members. Thanks for making them public Dan; if nothing else it encourages the rest of us to do our part to support their increase.

I must add though that I feel very strongly that you (Dan) are 100% right about people needing a free option - I certainly did when I first joined. I was living on financial fumes and feeling very discouraged; I wouldve never put a page up had it cost even a dime a month back then.

As I went to events though, learned more about Biznik itself and the opportunities it offered, as well as met others in my same spot, I quickly realized what a huge benefit it is, and how important it was to my survival as an entrepeneur.

As I became more active in the community, I was one that started bumping up against the edges of the free status - that message Christian describes is one I saw more than once, I admit. ;+) Those messages, along with the realization that the more active I am the more of a web presence I have, and a slight increase in my financial comfort, are ultimately what got me to upgrade. And it is certainly the most effective ten bucks I spend all month. Will I upgrade yet again? Probably, but not yet; as soon as the burden of increasing my outflow outweighs the increased benefits, I will (those financial fumes are sure persistent!).

SO, to make a long story even longer, I think it IS the Free that gets people in, and it sends the right message that Biznik is about community first and foremost. Then the value for the dollar has to be apparent in order for folks to upgrade. Maybe it is not apparent enough yet; or the boundaries (like that 3-messages restriction) just arent visible enough. I dont think I wouldve even known about the increased web presence if I had not attended one of the Social Networking workshops or heard Dan speak about it personally, that 28 vs 8 vs 1 sidebar notwithstanding. So maybe the question is - how can folks be more clearly informed and sooner about the benefits of paid membership? I also agree with Christian in that I never like being told to do anything, particularly when it comes to spending more money; but you can certianly count me as one who responded to being gently reminded about an increase in benefits if I did.

On the topic of free vs. paid membership, I've been having a lot of conversations lately with people running successful membership-based communities (10 & 100 times larger than Biznik) and I'm discovering exactly how much science goes into finding the perfect membership model.

Three pieces of feedback have stuck out:

• We're giving away the farm. Biznik's free membership has so much in it, there's little incentive to upgrade to a premium level if you don't care about visibility and SEO. Dan's shared our philosophy on providing a free level. That's not going to change. And we're told that it's hard to take stuff away from a free membership and start charging for it, without running the risk of losing a lot of people.

• Premium Membership incentives need to be rewarding not punitive. Adding more things like messaging limitations won't be as effective, as increasing the rewards like additional visibility and discounts on events. What are some other rewards you would upgrade your membership for?

• We take up too much space listing features, without clearly communicating the benefits. A redesign of the membership upgrade page is in the works.

I truly enjoy this site and appreciate the value it represents. We have recently developed a business model very similar to yours and are excited to see that you are beginning to consider some of the ideas that will be driving our organization. We believe in your "collaboration beats competition" philosophy and would love to take advantage of the timing to consider discussing the opportunity to potentially merge our profitable model with your incredible online model and allow everyone to reap the benefits. Feel free to contact me at your convenience and we look forward to making biznik not only available to everyone, but also ensuring that all of the members support it's growth and expansion. Kathy Mosley

Lara,

It's very obvious that you guys are putting a lot of time and effort into making Biznik the beneficial community that it has become. At this point, the future growth seemingly has unlimited potential if the right mixture of marketing and product substance can be found.

Something I also appreciate greatly is the amount of thought that you and those who comprise the brain-trust put into sorting through those things that would matter most to the community at-large.

Keeping in mind that discounts on events would mainly appeal to those in a limited geographical area and that there is most likely a wide difference in opinion as to what features are more important than others, it might be well worth the time to offer a (gawd I hate the thought) survey to members so that they could rank their 3 most important features vs the 3 features that don't really move the needle for them.

The results could be surprising & might help Biznik better position themselves when breaking down the benefits of different membership levels, as opposed to "giving away the farm"

Justathot

Dan - Awesome article on Yelp. Thanks for the linkage!

The 3 most important benefits to me are: 1. The yellow star 2. The signature 3. SEO

The differences between me paying here and not paying at other places I have a web presence are the "non-commercial" nature of the association (go figure) and the demonstrably successful SEO.

Dan,

Run you should run Adsense as backfill in various areas around the site. You could run some IAB leaderboards or skyscrapers, maybe have them between posts. If you don't want to subject paying members to this, add a conditional to remove it for them.

Quantcast approximates your page views at ~1,000,00 a month, even at 1% CTR you're going to make some money. If Google shows display ads, you'll be on a CPM level, and no clicks are needed.

I'll agree with you...Adsense is not the holy grail of monetization strategy, but if you have eyeballs, you'll make some money. At the end of the day, a dollar is a dollar. We were able to pull a few grand a month running Adsense as backfill, money that we would not have had otherwise.

If you'd like some help with monetization strategies, feel free to email me.

Good ideas. I am one who probably would not have joined if there were not a "free" level.

Most people would rather try things out for a few months to see if it works for them. It did not take me more than a couple of months to get my gold star, I saw the benefits very quickly.

Another thought would be to have the free level for the first year only. If people don't find benefits worth paying $$ for after one year...

On the other hand, I do not think that putting limits such as mentioned by Christian Jacobson (sorry Christian) would do good, rather it would discourage people from joining in the first place.

I believe that making the two upgrade levels more enticing to encourage members to upgrade is the best way to go about making Biznik a more profitable business.

As far as Amazon, I think this is a great idea and love the idea of paid members only being able to list their favorite books/own books.

The idea of advertising on non-paying accounts only is something everyone is used to already so I don't think that would send anyone away from using Biznik.

@Nancy: Just to clarify, those limits already exist at the Basic (free) membership level. When a basic member tries to send their third message, they get the "Sorry - you need to upgrade to do that" message.

This kind of messaging - in context, at the time the user encounters the limitation - can help people understand the benefits of upgrading. In my experience, I have had several users claim that was why they upgraded... they attended a great event, wanted to contact a bunch of the other attendees, and ran into the 3 message limit, and immediately upgraded to get beyond that limit.

I like this method of educating the user, because the user gets all the info they need, when they need it rather than having to remember a feature they saw on a product tour they took the day they joined.

Just my $0.02....

Thanks Christian,

I became a paying member so fast that I did not realize that limit already existed. I thought you were suggesting it be added. It being already in place, it is not a problem.

Happy to accept correction for my lack of knowledge of that limit.

Cheers!