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An Open Letter to Web Startups: Please Take My Money

By Tac Anderson ⋅ January 7, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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Money

It was just announced that comment tracking service Co.mments will be shutting their doors. We are going to be seeing a lot of startups running out of cash in 2009. A space like comment tracking can only handle so many entrants, especially when none of them have a viable business model yet.

Over the last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about what would happen if some of my most beloved services bit the dust.

What if Twitter, Zemanta, Brightkite, Diigo, or Tweetdeck folded up? I’d be crushed. I have made huge investments of time and content into these sites. Having to move over to another service would be a huge loss.

Some of these services would have a bigger effect on my life than others. I’ve also started evaluating new services with a new criteria: Are they going to be around next year?

I love Flickr and gladly pay my $20 dollars a year to support them. When I hooked up Jing and my camera phone up to my account I quickly maxed out the free version. I could have gone through and deleted all the photo’s I don’t use, or switched to another free service but I chose to pay my $20.

As I looked over the above listed service I wondered what it would take to get me to pay a premium service?

If Tweetdeck roles out the ability to manage multiple accounts, and synch multiple machines I’d gladly pay for that. If they came out with an iPhone app, I’d buy that as well.

Image representing Brightkite as depicted in C...
Image via CrunchBase

If Brightkite let me synch photo’s to Flickr and gave me a private channel to talk with friends, like BrightKite group chat I’d pay.

Image representing Diigo as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Diigo, I don’t know what else they could add, they already do so much. It probably wouldn’t take much but I’d pay. Do they have an iPhone app? I’d pay for an iPhone app for sure.

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...
Image via CrunchBase

Our beloved Twitter. Just ask and I’d pay right now. If they made it voluntary to pay, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Realistically though I think Twitter’s revenue (oh yes I have my own theories about their revenue model) will come from acquiring revenue generating add on services.

**Update**

Apparently to test my point TechSmith just sent me an email announcing the release of Jing Pro. Jing is a great screen capture tool I use frequently and love. Jing Pro has all the picture and video capabilities of Jing and allows you to upload your videos directly to YouTube (you could already send your pics to Flickr). I immediately plunked down my 14.95, bringing my paid for Web tools count to 2.

What about you? Do you find yourself thinking twice about which services you’ll invest your time in?

Which services that you use would you pay for?

Image by jenn_jenn via Flickr

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About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

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  • Anonymous

    We pay for our family picture/video site: Smugmug & would pay more if they asked.
    It is mostly used for professional photographers, but it is by far more superior than any picture site out there…and because we pay, no annoying adds. Bonus.

  • http://caffeinatedMarketing.wordpress.com Jen Harris

    We pay for our family picture/video site: Smugmug & would pay more if they asked.
    It is mostly used for professional photographers, but it is by far more superior than any picture site out there…and because we pay, no annoying adds. Bonus.

  • http://www.pinpointperformance.net/blog Justin Beller

    Wow! That’s news to me. I discovered coComment about a year and half ago and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it dropped off my radar screen and it was largely due to technical problems. I noticed how it was hit and miss when it came to integrating itself with your chosen browser. The goal was that everytime you commented on a blog post, it would track your comment and aggregate all comments to a single page in your account Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

    Maybe it was just me and lack of technical skill…

    I think we’re going to see more of this as the year unfolds. When we have economic downturns like the one we are going through, the stong businesses emerge and weak ones fall by the wayside.

    I’ll probably get eggs thrown at me for saying this, but we need this. There are far too many web 2.0 tools out there. It’s confusing! The ones that hold real value will survive.

  • http://www.pinpointperformance.net/ Justin Beller

    Wow! That’s news to me. I discovered coComment about a year and half ago and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it dropped off my radar screen and it was largely due to technical problems. I noticed how it was hit and miss when it came to integrating itself with your chosen browser. The goal was that everytime you commented on a blog post, it would track your comment and aggregate all comments to a single page in your account Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

    Maybe it was just me and lack of technical skill…

    I think we’re going to see more of this as the year unfolds. When we have economic downturns like the one we are going through, the stong businesses emerge and weak ones fall by the wayside.

    I’ll probably get eggs thrown at me for saying this, but we need this. There are far too many web 2.0 tools out there. It’s confusing! The ones that hold real value will survive.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    @justin, just to be clear it was Co.mment that went under not coComment. Yes it is confusing.

  • Anonymous

    Hi Tac!

    You definitely strike the right tune bringing out the question. Personally, I don’t think people would suffer too much if any of the services mentioned disappears. Definitely unpleasant, but not critical.

    However I am sure all of the start-ups mentioned are currently completely dedicated to shaping the products in a way that will bring money in. Zemanta notwithstanding.

    Already offering commercial license of the API, and more stuff coming soon.

    Oh, and to answer your question… which service I’d pay for personally. One obvious choice pops up immediately: Google search.

    bye
    Andraz Tori, Zemanta

  • http://www.zemanta.com/blog Andraz Tori

    Hi Tac!

    You definitely strike the right tune bringing out the question. Personally, I don’t think people would suffer too much if any of the services mentioned disappears. Definitely unpleasant, but not critical.

    However I am sure all of the start-ups mentioned are currently completely dedicated to shaping the products in a way that will bring money in. Zemanta notwithstanding.

    Already offering commercial license of the API, and more stuff coming soon.

    Oh, and to answer your question… which service I’d pay for personally. One obvious choice pops up immediately: Google search.

    bye
    Andraz Tori, Zemanta

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Andraz, of course we’d all live just fine(some of us may go through withdrawals) it would just be a hassle.

    That’s an interesting thought about paying for Google search since it’s really the only revenue generator Google has (and other related AdSense products). Are you saying you would you pay for an ad free version or just pay on top of the PPC model?

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    Andraz, of course we’d all live just fine(some of us may go through withdrawals) it would just be a hassle.

    That’s an interesting thought about paying for Google search since it’s really the only revenue generator Google has (and other related AdSense products). Are you saying you would you pay for an ad free version or just pay on top of the PPC model?

  • Anonymous

    I am saying that I’d rather pay than have it taken away. :)

    Andraz Tori, Zemanta

  • http://www.zemanta.com/blog Andraz Tori

    I am saying that I’d rather pay than have it taken away. :)

    Andraz Tori, Zemanta

  • http://www.pinpointperformance.net/blog Justin Beller

    @Tac.

    Don’t I feel stupid.

  • http://www.pinpointperformance.net/ Justin Beller

    @Tac.

    Don’t I feel stupid.

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    [...] via CrunchBaseLouis Gray continues the debate: how important is it for a Web service to have a revenue model? One commenter on Louis’ blog expresses the concern some of us have. “I’m a little [...]

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    @justin, just to be clear it was Co.mment that went under not coComment. Yes it is confusing.

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