Paid subscription - thoughts n discussion

[aCeAtUSC]

concept of payin is no harm ... as far as the members hav the privilage to access most of the threads free ... its a good idea to make PMs and avtars etc (sparing signatures - they r really good to read in many cases)as paid privilage ... coz tht r none of the basic necessities nd goal of the existene of this site ...

like the mobile services offer ... u can hav like ... 'n' # of free postings/mnth free in so nd so plan ... tht might est a control over spams ...

but threads like those havin discussion on careers ... nd a few ones like buying a laptop or in tht case any such thread tht provide info better remain free

me always thr ... paid or unpaid

suchit

[aCeAtUSC]

Originally Posted by chinmay686

still,in recent times I have seen a continuous drift of P.G towards threads non-relevant to the primary objective(those termed as spams...)of course with due respect to sm excellent old threads with vast pool of resources.....with workpressure,there might be too many pple like me who prefer to be inactive(by choice ofcourse...).

Originally Posted by chinmay686

..

wht i see is ... with # of ppl increasing ... so does the domain of interest ... nd somethin felt spam(or non-relevant) for a grp might be interesting(or relevant) for others...

thts my view ... !!!!
suchit.

[ketanm]

Hey PG,

Before I give any inputs, I would like to know the following....

I assume that currently you have following modes of revenue in mind

1) Ads (which we seeing)
2) Subscriptions (membership)
3) ??

So what are the other modes you have in mind.... and have you put any concrete target as to what percentage of total required cost will be covered by which mode of revenue?

Just to make myself clear.. lets say you know that "X" is your cost for running the forum.. so you might have something like following in mind...

0.3X ==> through membership
0.2X ==> through ads
0.1X ==> (something else??)
Remaining ==> You will fund.. and so on

Have you got anything in mind regarding this break-up?

Ketan

[EuPhOrIa]

DesiGuru

First try this... provide a online money transfer for the donation...
Depending on the donation give additional benefits... Never say there is such a thing as a paid subscription for now...

Agreed! Good step to start with.

Alcatraz
The knowledge base shud be available for all,if they wanna pay..fine.....i think the "fun" part of PG shud be taxed....chit-chat to start with....i say this because of the kind of spamming we have been seeing these days

I rethink on this point and it surely appealing...I second this. Well, we can keep the knowledge part open to all and start taxing "fun" part.

Further, whenever any competetion or any event is organised, only members should be allowed. There must be some bias to members on "fun" part and "features" part.

scdhruv
firstly: PG is growing. and so is internet penetration, why to hamper the growth.wait for higher user base.
second: PG is changing i mean a lot of members keep on adding and a lot leave. so in such a circumstance experience ppl is what PG should have to help newbies. who might be willing to pay but i dont think anyone would be interested in giving advice at a cost. so ultimately it will lead to lower amount of experinced users. and hence degradation in quality.

I don't think the growth will be hampered. I have suggested in my previous post that the free access (like a paid member) of everything should be given to any newbie and let them enjoy the service for, say, a week or two or say a month. There would be two reasons why they would become paid member,

1. PG is a gud addiction
2. He/She may realize the importance of being a part of PG

this concept is simply not sustainable.
you need other services which is going to pay for it.
one way would be sell it to some google, yahoo, MSN, amazon etc.
other is get some financial backing and provide email, search, or anyother similar facility
i suggest an online Bazzaaar . where everything is available ( but thats a different matter alltogether)

are we looking for a BAZZAAR? plz plz plzzzzzzzzzz PG don't make it the "one more fish" in the pond. Rather, as I suggested in my previous post, we can take ad or put up a link to store of few mangazines, newly published books on say GD/PI, Qnty, VA/RC or any management book etc. which will also help ignorant newbie MBA aspirant.

Let's change the mindset and understand that FREE quality cannot compete with PAID quality. Also, we have large pool of ppl who are MBA aspirants and are already paying thousands of bucks before they secure the admission...they can certainly contribute 4aana to PG as well.

[anuragxp]

I like PG's idea, here is what I suggest:

• The free accounts should only have access to "The Lounge" i.e Chit Chat and Your Interests.
• B-Schoolers should be given free access to B-School Student Discussions on producing proof of identity.
• Requiring a one year subscription for access to other threads like Cat and related discussions, Exam resources etc.
• People who take lifetime membership should be given some additional value added services like Email account, Blogging space, Space for uploading personal files, space for hosing a Micro website etc. This will encourage more and more people to take lifetime membership.

Will pour in with some more ideas soon.....

[misha]

i agree with anurag's points 2 and 3.....B-schoolers shud be given free access to that particular thread or a subsidised membership.. ....that way experienced people wont back out....

ya and all sections except the knowledge ones whud be made payed.....

as others have pointed out newbiews shud be given a free trial for a few days....

and ya i hope PG keeps in mind the affording capacity of the non-earners...

[ronniekher]

Hi,

I have the following suggestions :

1) Let the free account holders have access only to the exam resources section,but not to any other...and while they can post messages,maybe for starting a new thread let em ask for a mods permission ( esp considering the fact tht there have been a lot of surrogate advertising threads in the last few days).

2) If a person has not logged on for particular no of days,delete his account ( if its free ), but if its a paid acct, he should be forewarned abt account deletion.

3) If someone has been banned, there obviously will be a very valid reason for it. So I don't think there should be any need to refund their money.

4)Lastly, can we have a system ( not too sure whether if its feasible) that say if someone wants access only to a particluar section, he pays only for that, and this is deviod of any constraints...the fees could be equivalent to say a 5 yr subscription plan.


rgds
ron

[Zarine]

Really this was overdue for a long time.

As mentioned by Allwin,free access stays.Now coming to the paid part.Other than having variants in the duration of the subscription,we can offer some choice in the accessibility and subsequent fees charged.

For eg. of the 13 sub forums we have, the member can choose all of them at a pre fixed amt. or choose a bouquet of 3/6/9 forums.The chit chat section should be charged.(Jeez,reminds me of CAS )

The idea is to pay for what you want.For eg. the Quant disc forum is of no use to a B-schooler like me,so I choose not to pay for it. As for the perks which a paid member gets,I dont think Avatar,sign really matter tht much for someone to pay for them. Instead,features like up/downloading material, taking part in polls and the PM facility could be the value add ons.And yeah,the free member should have some restriction on the number of the posts s/he can make per day/week.Goes without saying,paid members can spam ..ok,j/k.

As for the payment mode,well,let's go by the way zango has collected donations.Members can deposit the amount in the said account number.Umm...still,will have to deal more in detail with this part.

I guess,if possible,add something more to the services the paid member gets...

[hasher]

hey!

Nice idea Allwin..

some really good ideas interms of making the lunge available for free and the b-school oriented thread paid etc..

but i still fail to see why PG.com insists on focusing on BSchools only. there are a lot of users who are essentially drifters, who use the PG forums to discuss Cat scoreas and all other tips and tricks to get into colleges, but then post enrolling into college we hardly hear from them at all. this lot becomes sort of stagnant. It may be because theyr're busy, and pressuried et all by work. it may also be dure to the inaccesibility to the site, abad net connection whatevre the reason maybe.. a lot of them arent repeat customers..

Making PGForum a paid forum is awesome idea. but why not get into inviting non B schools in it too. why not consider that there are a whole lot of people in other pgs, and india being so much into education, tehre are so many people out there who dont want to an MBA, but do other post graduate streams. Desidgn schools, IT institutes, Masters of the Arts, Entrepreneurship, the evolving "family business "category, the MDP programme oriented people,etc. why not open the forum to more "PGs" = post graduates. irrespective of their field.

this way we not only target a larger much larger market, we develop the mindests of memebrs who think there arent anything else except be a doctor, engineer or MBA.
More people means more bandwith or more space, but it also meand more people to "share" the cost of membership.

I think PG.com needs to be about more than just MBA.

..just a thought

[Leazerdking]

before making it paid forum.
spare one more thought to generating some bucks thru compulsory voting. it is not a pain for regular users .wont be very tasking for clicking a link.

yea inviting classes for their ads...wud be gr8.