Growing pains

[albummaster]

I'm going to be straight up on this post. I have a dilemma, call it growing pains or whatever but the site has now reached 10,000 members which is great.

The dilemma is this: BEA makes no money so I have a 'day job' (which is software engineering) which puts a roof over my head and food in my mouth. I can't give up my day job to work on BEA because the site does not have a commercial model (nobody pays anything and there's not a huge amount of ads compared to some other sites), but this site now uses up more and more of my 'spare' time to keep it running smoothly.

The result of not being able to work on BEA as much as I would like is that features take ages to be developed (& some not at all), the site is a bit rough around the edges, and people might expect better? I don't know, but there is plenty of competition and it's easy to fall behind.

There is a fantastic roadmap planned for this site in 2011 (and beyond) and the site has a great future, but if the roadmap never gets implemented, what use is that?

About a year ago, BEA took one hour of my time each day to do admin etc, but every time the traffic doubles, it has an exponential effect on my time. I now spend 3 hours every day on data admin and looking after the forums (not including development). That's three less hours I can spend on leisure or in my day-job. In a year, it might be 5 hours each day if traffic doubles again and project that forward, it could be a full-time job to just maintain the site, which if it didn't make any money isn't sustainable and the site would have to close.

So, I want to get people's feedback on something that I am considering which is only an idea at this stage. What if BEA had a subscription model where for a nominal fee (say $10 per year), people could have bigger charts than regular members, an 'ad-free' experience and perhaps some other benefits? A lot of other sites have a so-called 'freemium' model so it's not totally unusual and would then allow me to focus more time on BEA and push through the roadmap. Without it, I can't stop my day-job to work on BEA (it's impossible to justify and I think everybody would understand that).

I realize that it might not be popular to do this, and if it's a waste of time even suggesting this, then I won't do it, but the site can only exist with a lot of my time spent keeping it running (and more and more each year). Without some type of commercial activity to allow me to spend more time on it, I'm not sure how long I can keep it running and I just see the site dying eventually if I can't keep up with the workload.

Constructive thoughts anyone?

[Bork]

I don't know the answer, but if anyone knows how sites that have gone from free for all to that sort of mixed pay model have fared that would probably be useful in Albummasters decision.

The reason I bring it up is that I doubt it will be possible to bring in enough money to make a living from it. People are used to free stuff and the threshold of going from free to giving up your payment information is a steep one. It probably doesn't matter so much if it's $1 for the rest of your life or $5 a month, it's the difference between paying at all or not.

Not very constructive I fear.

[albummaster]

Bork, thanks for your thoughts and I think you are right. I'm certainly not expecting to make a full-time living from the site, but the alternative is everyone putting up with the current rate of progress ad infinitum and it might only be an option for the next 18 months until the admin just becomes too much to manage with my workload outside of BEA having to take priority because it pays the bills. So, beyond that, the site could die. It's just trying to buy that extra time from my day job to allow me to make the improvements in the roadmap which will then attract greater traffic. It's a spiral, but without a business model underneath, it's not very sustainable.

Freemium is not unusual, it's just a bit alien around here and rightly or wrongly, I've always had a bad reaction from people here before when I've tried to do anything with ads. Anyway. just thinking aloud really and maybe someone out there might have an idea, or just help spark a new thought. Nothing's set in stone, I'm just searching for ideas and I appreciate it might not be to everyone's taste.

[RFNAPLES]

First let me publicly thank you albummaster for all your work, time and investment in BEA. Keep up the good work!

I think you should offer two memberships; one free but supported by advertisements and the other premium supported by an annual membership fee equal to the price of one CD. The premium membership would include larger charts and perhaps additional charts and allow the premium member to turn off advertisements.

You may also wish to seek donations and give some type of "BEA Supporter" logo for display on site or elsewhere at donors option. Donors need not be limited to members.
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[albummaster]

Thank you, RF. I don't want to make it sound like I'm begging because I'm not and seeking donations might look like I'm desperate.

I'm just trying to work out how I can keep BEA alive in a year or so when it might be taking me most of each day to keep the site running smoothly! If I was on this site all day every day, it would leave no time for my day job which pays my bills.

I'd very much like to take BEA to the next level, but this means a huge amount of development work needs to happen (which is very slow at the moment due to other commitments). Proper time needs to be allocated to do this and I've simply not got enough hours in each day to hold down a full time job AND do the work that I think is needed on this site in a reasonable time period, and that's the conundrum that I'm trying to solve.

I also wouldn't want to alienate existing members with any changes. The idea of tiered membership where current members would benefit from new improvements as well, but premium members having some extra goodies might work but I don't think there are enough active members that would want to pay anything at the moment to make this feasible and it's probably not worth even asking. Again, this is all just talk at the moment to canvas people's views and explore some options, but read between the lines and you can see where the site might end up next year if nothing happens.

[GARY]

I don't think of it as begging at all. It's just the reality of the fact this site now has 10,000 members. I congratulate you on your achievement. IMO it should be clear to all that only because you have been impressively sedulous spending much of your "free" time that this site is so good, informative, fun etc.

Personally, I don't do Facebook, Myspace, or sites of the kind because I don't trust them for one thing. I would certainly have no problem paying to come on this site.

Thank you.



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I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



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[GARY]

Just for comparison there are 2 sites, in America at least, that I know charge for membership.

MyLife charges like $60 for a 1 year membership.

Classmates charges about $50.
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I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



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[albummaster]

thanks GARY for your feedback, it's far from easy to expect people to pay. So, if we went down this route it would need to be affordable for people and we'd still keep the 'free' membership option which, under this line of thought, would have less features than the paid version and possibly more ads.

Regards other music sites: Last.fm is free but for $36pa they offer uninterrupted listening, RYM is free but also charge $15pa for member-only features, IMDb charge $124pa for their member-only package called IMBbPro (but film rather than music), Discogs is free but has their marketplace, AllMusic is free as well but sell/license their content to third parties.

I'm sure I've missed some others, but you can see all of these successful sites have business models underpinning them which allows them to invest in their sites and keep them running.

It's trying to find a model here that doesn't annoy people too much and if there isn't anything, then at least I've explored the options.

[RFNAPLES]

Albummaster, the choice is yours. I am sure there will be the usual complainers but they aren't bringing any revenue to the site. If they don't want advertisements they can leave (that won't cost the site anything but may add some free time for you) or step up to premium membership and get more while having the option of turning off advertisements.

Accepting donations is not begging. I doubt it would be a huge revenue stream but why not accept what comes from an offer to give a BEA Supporter logo?

Did you ever think of getting a partner or volunteer help? Amazon does IMDb maybe they could help develop or provide venture capital. How about a partnership or joint venture with facebook?
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Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[GARY]