Domaining.com ~ Soon to charge you to READ..

DotWeekly · Nov 20, 2008

I have been a huge fan of Domaining.com and think it’s a GREAT site for not only people who are domainers and bloggers but helps get the word out to "outsiders".

Today in the Domaining.com newsletter Francois has made it clear things are about to change and it’s going to cost YOU and our Domaining industry as a whole.

Francois said:

"Time is come to generate recurent revenue to can at least help maintain this service.
It’s now clear the sale of advertising spaces is not a financing solution.

This is why Domaining.com should switch to a subcription based service within the next weeks.
Don’t panic, the cost should be something between $10 and $30 monthly (still to define).

As a postive note this will lead to major improvements:
- You could select the blogs you want to read.
- You could add your own feeds. "

I personally do not see anything "Positive" about this move besides killing a great service to the domaining community with Money getting in the middle. I really do not think the "money" part of this story is all that true as there just is not that much money involved with the site from what I can tell. The content is provided FREE, the design and software I’m sure is and was very low costs.

Francois has built a large base of "emails" adding in the login feature to read posts awhile back, so that list of emails alone imo is priceless. ExpiringDomains.com was brought to what it is Because of Domaining.com and the domaining industry itself has Grown because of Domaining.com which in return helps the value of Domaining.com itself.

Sometimes Money comes in other forms then the paper stuff all of us love in our wallet!

Charging the people who READ Domaining.com is not the right thing to do, no matter if it’s $1 a month or $30. I hope you reconsider this Francois as this will hurt our whole Industry.

As an industry, WE need to prevent this "charge" from happening.

I think the Clear way of doing this if Francois wants to Charge something is to charge the Bloggers who want their feed included, NOT the readers....

Fka200 · Nov 20, 2008

I definitely vote against a charge, but if Domaining.com DOES decide to charge, I'm sure someone with the necessary skills could replicate the site in a matter of a couple hours.

If they get a domain as good as Domaining.com I'm not sure, but I'm 100% sure it can be done.

I feel like checking my e-mail, but its 6:40AM... time for sleep

.

maxeaus · Nov 20, 2008

I would not pay $1.00 a month to read someones site, or $10 or certainly not $30! This is the fastest way to lose your members IMO. Certainly in this financial environment it's a fizzer.

Ross · Nov 20, 2008

All anyone really needs to do is add their favorite feeds to an RSS reader. The only difference between this site and an RSS reader is that it aggregates all the feeds in to one page for EVERYONE to see. Pretty sad that he is going to start charging. I guess all good things must come to end sometime....

Big P · Nov 20, 2008

Good post Yofie...I read domaining all the time, but I am not going to pay for a service(whether it be $1 or $30 a month), when I could just go to DotWeekly. or Elliots Blog, or Domain Name Wire & read the post that I want to read...IMO domaining, while still a very nice & informative site, has started to slip a bit & I don't think that charging for information that I could get for free elsewhere, is a very good business model.

prague7 · Nov 20, 2008

I agree - I don't understand why I would pay when I now know which blogs I like to read and could subscribe to them myself with an RSS reader (and even filter out the ones I don't like...

) As Yofie says, surely the charge should be to the bloggers as a distribution service and for access to the large email list that has undoubtedly been created?

I'd save the subscription fee and use the money to reg a few more domains instead...!

BigSotong.com · Nov 20, 2008

Why is there a need to pay? I get a lot of information in namepros anyway. Sorry...will not be visiting domaining.com now.

DotWeekly · Nov 20, 2008

Another thing for Francois to consider is the Price of advertising on Domaining.com . Domainers are Cheap, but will advertise if the price is right.

I will take $20 over $0 anyday.

(prices below are current ad prices on Domaining.com . Source)

Sponsored Headlines (which is Empty nearly everyday)

$100 per day or $250 for 3 days

Do a Reverse Auction and at least fill the spots each day/week. $20 is better then $0 in my book. Start the auctions on ExpiringDomains.com. You are buying a DATE. Start at $100 and go down to $20..

Leaderboard

$1,500 per week

Same as before! Something is Better then nothing...

Menu Listing

$2,000 annual flat fee (without Domaining mini banner)

has2hands · Nov 20, 2008

Hello,

I think we all understand the need for profit/money in any enterprise but was very surprised at the amount of MONTHLY subscription fees he was talking about....$10 to $30 per month!

So, the service has to be worth $120 to $360 per year for me to subscribe and I just don't feel it is worth that much. More bookmarks for some blogs are free!

I always viewed it as a simple RSS aggregator with a few nice services...But $10 to $30 per month...ouch!

Hope his income improves, just like the economy, and he rethinks his position.

Paul

deleted984054565403 · Nov 20, 2008

Francois is a smart guy and I know he can come up with a better model than charging subscriptions to provide other people’s content. I really appreciate the Domaining.com service, and even as an active domainer I would not pay to subscribe to Domaining.com. I have my favorite blogs that I read, and I can manage my own feeds. Francois has earned a ton of respect by keeping Domaining.com free and providing a great resource, but I definitely agree that paying for a subscription won’t do the industry much service — it likely won’t thicken Francois’ wallet any, either.

Terrains · Nov 20, 2008

Kinda sucks that domaining.com is actually featuring an article from Dotweekly about Domaining "thinking green".

dodo1 · Nov 20, 2008

Francois is the owner of the site. I do not think we need to prevent him from charging for the service, it is his choice. Nobody is obligated to provide a free service.

But I will not allow him to make money from my feed beyond advertising on Domaining.com. If he wants to charge people for reading, then I will have my feed removed.

- You could select the blogs you want to read.
- You could add your own feeds.

That doesn't sound like a major improvement to me. That's what I can do in every feed reader for free.

ripley · Nov 20, 2008

There's nothing wrong with seeking to monetize a service you've been providing. But I think this is the wrong approach.

Personally, I won't pay to read it. I might pay for a service that's associated with it, but not simply to read a blog aggregator.

Nothing wrong with charging for a service. It's just not one I'd personally be interested in paying for.

ripley.

Michael · Nov 20, 2008

So he's going to charge money for a site that auto-posts content from other people's blogs via their RSS feed? Throw feedwordpress on a fresh wordpress install and you've duplicated that waste of space. Is he even allowed to sell a subscription to read someone else's blog without giving the author a cut?

http://projects.radgeek.com/feedwordpress/

Ross · Nov 20, 2008

Michael said:
So he's going to charge money for a site that auto-posts content from other people's blogs via their RSS feed? Throw feedwordpress on a fresh wordpress install and you've duplicated that waste of space. Is he even allowed to sell a subscription to read someone else's blog without giving the author a cut?

http://projects.radgeek.com/feedwordpress/

LOL i actually threw that up on a blog just before i read that. Adding the feeds right now. HAHA

Seabass · Nov 20, 2008

I won't pay for that......there are only about five sites I really appreciate that domaining.com has feeds from anyhow.

NameGuy · Nov 20, 2008

Just use Google reader or some other feed aggregator and subscribe to the feeds you want to read. Simple. Charging for this is lame.

deleted984054565403 · Nov 20, 2008

Someone made the comment that Francois should charge the blog writers for sending them free traffic.

I guess whoever said that doesn't realize that Francois wouldn't have much of a site without the blog writers.

All he needs to do is bring the prices of his advertising down, and he'll be golden. :imho:

copper · Nov 20, 2008

Francois is one smart guy and I like him, however...
I think he's approaching this from wrong end.

There are many ways to skin the cat, but, this isn't one of them.
Many domainers are marketers as well.
So, insert autoresponder service affiliate link into email.
Sell ebooks that will help members thru email.

Internet Marketer who use email list said that each
optin email address is worth about $2.50/month if done properly.

If you want to see domain blog postings...
As others said, all you need is RSS feed.

Or, if you think it's too technical for you,
you can install "Blog Talk Monitor" from
http://www.blogsuccess.com/ on your computer.

Just download it and click install.

With this, you can check things about anything,
not just domain related. And it's free!

This will give you...
Title
Description
Google page rank
Alexa rank
Compete rank

Now, why do you think this site is giving it away for free?
To gather email addresses because optin email addresses are very valuable.

Francois already have tons of email addresses from this.
Why not try to monetize it instead of charging members?

tonyfloyd · Nov 20, 2008

Pepe Le Pew.....can kiss our arse!!....lol....better yet...maybe charge him $40 per kiss for that privilege...

tata668 · Nov 20, 2008

I wouldn't pay even if I enjoy the site.

-Adam- · Nov 20, 2008

Only magazine I have ever paid for was "BlackBelt" and I still managed to get 2 years for less than $30.

I understand wanting to have some sort of revenue stream but that price gauge seems a bit pompous.

Spade · Nov 20, 2008

I certainly agree with Jamie on this one, that charging a subscription fee to sell someone elses content is silly. I can assure you I wont be paying to read the content and frankly, I see this move opening the door for a clone version which would be quite simple to build.

Ross · Nov 20, 2008

Spade said:
I certainly agree with Jamie on this one, that charging a subscription fee to sell someone elses content is silly. I can assure you I wont be paying to read the content and frankly, I see this move opening the door for a clone version which would be quite simple to build.

Already on the way

!

henniemeijer · Nov 20, 2008

Charging the bloggers seems like a good idea as so many of them are promoting services/themselves in ways that it is hard to call them independent reviews.
More Infomercials.
Therefor many of the bloggers are the ones who benefit directly or indirectly(value blog goes up,backlinks,contacts) from domaining.com

Saying that bloggers are providing content and should get paid may technically be true, but how many extra readers do they get because of domaining.com
A number of them would have a hard time building up any kind of customer base and therefor have much less success pumping whatever they are promoting.

The bloggers that are not trying to push services of themselves/friends make money because the value of their blog should go up anyway with all these extra readers, they get extra contacts, gain a reliability status, can easier sell their own and other domains,etc.

Domaining.com ~ Soon to charge you to READ..

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