Today I fired up the Wall Street Journal app on my iPhone and was greeted with the following message: "Your trial period to subscriber access ends next week." You see, I have enjoyed reading the WSJ on my iPhone for free ever since I downloaded the app nine months ago. Unfortunately, that little pleasure will soon end, as Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation have decided that their bottom line needs a boost. However, I am not willing to pony up $50 a year for the privilege of reading this particular newspaper on my phone, so they will not be getting a boost from me anytime soon.
When it comes to the Web, free is the new black. It has long been said that information wants to be free, and nowhere is the more the case than on the Internet. It just doesn't make sense to pay when there are so many different sources of free information available.
I have been working my way through Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational. In it, there's a chapter that discusses the power that free has over the typical consumer. In one example, Ariely notes that people will generally jump at the opportunity to sign up for a free checking account with no additional benefits attached, while shunning a checking account that has a $5 monthly fee -- even though it comes with a variety of benefits such as free traveler's checks, online billing, etc. that could potentially save the customer far more than the $5 monthly fee. Remember the browser war started by Microsoft against rival Netscape, which at the time owned more than 80 percent of the browser market? Microsoft did something unexpected -- it gave away its browser for free, while Netscape charged for its browser. Guess who won the war? Microsoft did. And if you want a browser, you can download any one you like -- Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, Apple Safari -- for free.
If you're selling content on the Web, than take a close look at your pricing model. Are you giving information away for free -- and finding alternative ways to monetize your content, such as running advertising on your site -- or are you charging customers for it? How many more customers would you have if you found a way to give your content away for free -- and still make money? The answers to these questions could make a huge difference in the number of people who visit your site looking for information -- and on your bottom line.
