Ask HN: Would you pay for information?

2 pointskarsa15y ago8 comments

delivered by video?

I am launching a beta version of a new video product today...

This is a Flash video player which allows anyone to charge for information conveyed by video, allowing viewers to watch for a set period of time free, then the video is paused and the viewer is required to pay for unlimited access if they wish to continue!

I would like to demonstrate the concept to you by given you an example of its usage and for this case I would like to introduce a method to help protect a companies online brand from being tarnished.

The Example:

Online brand reputation management is generally very expensive to accomplish and the technique I am revealing in this video could save a company thousands of pounds.

There is a fee of £49 GBP to watch the full video, but the first six minutes are free. It will then pause at 6 minutes and ask for a payment to be made, thereafter I will explain the procedure technically.

You can see the product in action here:

http://www.brandcurrency.co.uk/

It's the large video with the £49 price!

SOME BACKGROUND:

We are all pioneers in our own fields and each of us often have unique insights to problems and hold information which could have a high value to others, which can also be easily explained in a video.

There are many successful entrepreneurs selling informational ebooks, typically they use a company called Clickbank (http://www.clickbank.com/index.html) who manage the online payments of sales.

These ebook offers' normally make use of very long and somewhat spammy looking sales pages which for some strange reason seem to convert well...

A typical example of such a sales page would be as follows: http://www.get-better-grades.com/index-pass-exam.php

Clickbank claims to have paid out over 1 billion euros in earnings over the last 10 years so clearly there is money to be made from selling information!

One problem with those traditional ebook offers is that ebooks actually take a long time to write and develop.

Another problem is that in many cases video is better suited to explaining techniques visually, take the example of a plasterer demonstrating the art of plastering! Which would you prefer an ebook or a video demonstration?

In my new concept, information can be produced and packaged much quicker than traditional ebooks. Videos can be shoot and edited very quickly (in a few hours) in comparison to ebooks which can take several months to develop.

Also by using video it opens up entirely new avenues which can be explained easily and quickly, giving both the producers and consumers of the content added efficiency.

The concept is known and the Flash PAYer and can be found here: http://www.karsa.co.uk

At some point in the next 6 months (according to its adoption) I will probably incorporate a payment plan to this application and most likely have a tiered pricing plan with low monthly fees from £29GBP etc. however, its use is currently free and it will likely stay free for at least 6 months.

All payments go straight into the video producers own Paypal account so they make all the profits, no margins are siphoned off.

This concept is currently a 'minimum viable product' with just the most essential features incorporated, nevertheless it achieves the goals I set out for this product and I hope you find the concept interesting.

It could be used for any archive of online video information and all the variables can be adjusted.

I would love your feedback....

8 comments

jacquesm15y ago

Paying for information is dependent on the value of the information to an individual or corporation, if you want people to pay for information then you can look at angles such as scarcity, quality, return on investment, entertainment value and so on.

There is such a thing as the 'information economy', so clearly information has value but what that value is highly depends on the information itself.

Next weeks lottery numbers are information, they're worth gold today but nothing two weeks from now.

karsaOP15y ago

Don't you feel that with video, the reason it has been traditionally poor at converting or monetizing is because the systems used so far have generally been pay walls.

Pay walls eliminate customers because its like anything what you don't know you don't miss.

This new concept however, works much like real world interactions where the consumer can get hooked on the content before having to pay.

I think this is a fundamental shift from Pay walls...

jacquesm15y ago

The way most video sites seem to solve this is by adding advertising at the beginning of the clip.

It's a high nuisance way of creating money but it does seem to work.

1 more reply

michael_dorfman15y ago

I can't say I'm too impressed with this as a business model.

I think that it's a small set of cases where video is the most effective way to transmit valuable information, and the alleged advantage over e-books ("e-books actually take a long time to write and develop") completely underestimates the work involved in creating a professional video.

But even then, supposing that I were willing to pay £49 for a (professionally produced, high value content) video, I'd sure as hell want to be able to download it and watch it repeatedly.

So, at the end of the day, what you are offering is DRM-protected video-- and there are plenty of much bigger folks (i.e., Hollywood) trying to crack that nut, with little success so far.

karsaOP15y ago

offerings so far do not use the get hooked before you buy.

Also the variables are fully adjustable so people can allow 1 year of access etc..

The video I created as an example took me a few hours which includes the time needed to make the codecs. Of course though higher quality videos take longer but still they can be made relatively painlessly today.

Thanks for your feedback though.

braindead_in15y ago

Would you consider selling the audio transcript of the file?

We are working on a similar thing for podcasts. We plan to offer audio player and an option to buy the full transcript of the podcast. You are not however forced to buy the transcript; you can listen to it as usual. Transcript is just a convenience thing if you want to read it instead of listen to it.

karsaOP15y ago

I would not since this is just really a demo for how the video product can be used..

good luck with your project though..

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