15 Websites / Services I'd Actually Pay For

One measure of a service’s utility and stickiness is its ability to charge for usage. Consequently, I regularly find myself asking, “Is this important enough to me that I’d pay for it?”

Here are some of the services / sites where that answer is yes… And what I’d be willing to pay: Gmail: I’d pay to keep my Gmail account more because the switching cost is high than because of the functionality. That switching cost is painful enough that I’d spend $75 to prevent it. I will likely end up paying for increased storage too.

Google Maps: Love Google Maps for my Blackberry. Telenav is $9.99 / mo and offers greater functionality – I’d likely pay $10 to download Google Maps or some nominal monthly fee. If Google Maps added navigational directions, I would pay $10 / month.

Wordpress.org: The benefit of blogging with WP is so significant (SEO, functionality, flexibility) that it’s well worth paying for. I’d probably pay a $200 for an installation… which makes me realize how much I rely on the product.

Google Analytics: If Google analytics weren’t free, I would unhappily pay a monthly fee to install it ($10) because, despite my disdain for the interface and lack of real-time metrics, it really is a necessity.

Google Analytics w/ Real Time Data: I would certainly pay extra for real-time Google Analytics.

Slimstat: Slimstat is a free Wordpress plugin that delivers real-time analytics. I would pay $40 to install it.

Slimstat “Premium”: … And I’d pay a lot more if Slimstat offered a model with unlimited data capturing / storage (the basic one shows the last ‘n’ records). I would pay $100 / domain.

Mint Analytics: I gladly paid $40 to install Mint on my domains. Great data and great interface.

Craigslist: I would pay for premium listings on Craigslist (if they introduced some sort of featured ads format) and I’ve paid the jobs listing fees before (many times).

Amazon Prime: I spend enough on Amazon that they gave me Amazon Prime for free when it first launched. Considering that I buy my groceries, toiletries, electronics, dog food, etc on it – I’d pay for Prime if Amazon forced me to.

iStockPhoto Premium: I love iStockPhoto – but it’s a pain to purchase credits. I’d pay for a premium account that enables power-usage.

MLB.tv: MLB is the only major sport that has truly adopted the web and their radio and video streaming is fantastic. I already pay for the service (estimates: $14.99 for radio broadcast of all games,$99-$179 for video)

Podcasts / On-demand Radio: There are certain podcasts and radio shows that I would pay to be able to download in entirety. For instance, I love The Thundering Herd on ESPN Radio but it streams too early on the west coast for me to catch it – and the Podcast only captures 30 minutes of the broadcast. I would pay $5-$10 a month to listen to it on-demand, in its entirety (price depends on whether or not ads are in the broadcast). The same can be said for Tony Bruno and JT the Brick.

eLance: I love eLance. Use it all the time. They choose to charge the service provider – but if they reversed it, I would pay on a per-listing basis. The price depends on the project, but a nominal amount ($5?).

ESPN360: It’s the only way that I can catch Duke games without leaving work at 3pm pst... I’d pay either per game or per month ($5-10) for the service. I’d pay a whole lot more if they could include MLB, NFL and NBA (would start to challenge my Comcast bill).

Blackberry 9000 Video - First Look is Impressive

If you haven't yet switched over to an iPhone (like me), you are probably excited for the new Blackberry 9000. The first videos look great... although the presenter makes a terrific point: this is not a revolutionary phone. Rather, it's evolutionary.

The interface, OS and form are all revamped - but are essentially improvements. I am excited about a couple things:

- a faster OS (huge need) - the screen (looks amazingly crisp) - video capture (the camera improvements look great)

Not excited about the size. I much prefer the Curve to the 8800. It doesn't look much different, but the 8800 is far bulkier. I also want to know more about the internet browser (desperately needs the ability to run multiple browsers) and what native apps the 9000 comes with.

Grand Theft Auto IV's First Week Sales: $500mm and 6mm Units

GTA IV somehow proved to be even bigger than the expectations. Tomorrow morning, Take Two Interactive will report that Grand Theft Auto IV:

- Sold 3.6 million units in the first day - Sold 6 million units in the first week - Hit $500 million in sales in the first week

The New York Times notes that these results beat analyst expectations by 20%.

To put this in perspective, last weekend's opening of Iron Man brought in a record-breaking $201mm globally... GTA IV did 2.5x that. Of course unit prices are drastically different - but these are massive numbers.

Google AdSense Optimization - Large Rectangle (336 x 280) up to 6x Better

Last week, I made a relatively minor change to the AdSense units on this site and consequently have seen 3.5-6x better CPMs... a remarkable difference.

On blog post permalinks, I used to have a 468 x 60 text unit between the post title and the article. I switched that unit to a large rectangle (336 x 280) that sits between the end of the post and the comments. That change alone resulted in 3.5-6x improved CPMs - sitewide! And that's without making two changes that are probably more significant / effective:

1) Adding that same unit to the blog's homepage and placing it between posts 2) Nesting the unit within the article on post permalinks (like below)

Other considerations: - Testing the color and formatting of the unit - Test rotation of text, image and video ads (all exist for that size) - Adding Google Links Ads (you can have three text / image ad units per page and three link units)

Have any AdSense best practices?

A Year in Digg Headlines - Charting the Trends from 2006-2008

I've added The StatBot to my must-read blogroll - they put together some fascinating analysis and statistics across top web 2.0 sites... oh yeah, it's done by a 17 year old "wannabe geek from India". The result is amazing analysis that showcases the power of distribution, platforms and open-APIs.

Here is a charting of Digg's popular headlines compared year-over-year. Digg is considered a haven for techies - but if you scan left-to-right, you'll notice that the headlines have become increasingly mainstream in 2008 (pics, Clinton, Obama, CNN, Economist, etc). 2007 was predominantly driven by gadgets: Vista, Wii, Sony, Nintendo, iTunes, iPod, etc. It's tough to tell how much of this trend is due to the fact that 2008 is an election year - but the shift from tech to pop-culture suggests that Digg has:

1) expanded their userbase 2) developed depth beyond technology 3) is a major news source / community for news, politics and commentary

Iron Man's Opening Weekend Box Office? $201mm Worldwide

Much of the talk over the weekend was about how Yahoo's stock would react now that Microsoft's offer was retracted (down 15% and ~$24)... but it was a magnificent weekend on a different front: Marvel jumped nearly 10% as Iron Man, the first release by Marvel Studios, earned $201 million in worldwide box office sales and $104 million in the US. Marvel raised its outlook for the year and promised to release Iron Man 2 in 2010.

I am eager to see the first reported numbers for Grand Theft Auto IV and, once they are released, how that will impact Take Two Interactive and Sony.

Microsoft's Yahoo Acquisition is No More - Microsoft Withdraws Offer

Microsoft Withdraws Proposal to Acquire Yahoo!Official Press Release

REDMOND, Wash., May 3 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that it has withdrawn its proposal to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO).

“We continue to believe that our proposed acquisition made sense for Microsoft, Yahoo! and the market as a whole. Our goal in pursuing a combination with Yahoo! was to provide greater choice and innovation in the marketplace and create real value for our respective stockholders and employees,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft.

“Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer. After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal,” said Ballmer.

“We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners. While Yahoo! would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals,” Ballmer said.

“We are investing heavily in new tools and Web experiences, we have dramatically improved our search performance and advertiser satisfaction, and we will continue to build our scale through organic growth and partnerships,” said Kevin Johnson, Microsoft president for platforms and services.

Characteristics of Effective Boards, Directors and Management

Below are two great articles about board effectiveness and interaction - both pieces are by Pascal Levensohn.

The summarized rules below ring true far beyond board behavior: leadership, management, and organizations. Great, intuitive and thoughtful guidelines:

Common characteristics of effective private company boards / directors:

- Establish a clear and mutual understanding of expectations and the CEO - Conduct a formal annual performance evaluation of the CEO - Have directors who work as a team and who make important contributions outside the boardroom - Encourage open / honest communications - Resolve differences of opinion constructively and quickly - Have directors who are accountable to each other - Promote continuing director education about current best practices - Know and understand their responsibilities as directors - Are informed when they arrive at the board meeting, know the industry and know the company's context in the industry - Do not attack the CEO or other board members - Participate in free and easy communication outside of the boardroom - If appropriate, provide a different perspective as an individual member of the group

Common Characteristics of ineffective private company boards / directors:

- Fail to communicate - both in and out of the boardroom - Suffer from denial - fail to act and make decisions - Fail to reconcile diverging viewpoints - Avoid addressing existing conflicts - Regularly hold excessively long board meetings (more than three hours without a strategic planning or other extraordinary agenda) - Feel compelled to say something and to be heard, even if their comments are not relevant or effective - Become disengaged because they no longer feel that their opinion matters - this could be over a strategic disagreement - Fail to resolve disagreements quickly and constructively - Do not attend board meetings regularly - Deliver inconsistent messages between the actual meeting and their post-meeting behavior - passive aggressive behavior - Succumb to lead investors who discourage constructive discussion from the rest of the board

New SocialFeed Widget (...Your FriendFeed Widget-ized)

Yesterday Scoble unveiled his new blog theme and the resounding feedback among the 150+ comments was positive... and how'd he create that FriendFeed widget? For those web 2.0 users, Widgetbox has a new widget that aggregates your social content - we're calling it the SocialFeed Widget. The widget is completely configurable.

Configurations - set the widget's size - choose the theme (currently 6 available) - select your web 2.0 sites and input your username (Flickr, Last.fm, Pownce, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, Digg and Delicious) - set your font size and feed size - input your widget's header and name

Of course you can create your own SocialFeed and embed it within your blog's sidebar as a promotional tool and traffic driver... or you can configure your SocialFeed to showcase content from popular power-users (like Jason Calacanis, Robert Scoble, etc).