Just another nerd.
Upside.Com reports that one of the problems Microsoft has experienced with its ongoing Internet Messenger outage is that not one, but two sets of backup systems had faulty disk controllers, and a Microsoft spokesman is quoted as saying, “…we have had to go to our third level of backup to restore the service and retrieve customer data, [so] this process has taken longer than we had hoped.”
Gee, I can’t wait for .Net so Microsoft can manage all of my data!
As the bloated dot.coms have been falling right and left I’ve been arguing that it is largely irrelevant because it is the smaller web sites, often run by a very small team or even a single individual, that are the sites that I find most compelling. Moreover, while it is going to be difficult for a sight like Salon or Slate to ever achieve the sort of profitablity that offline publishing industries expect (and realistically, that is what Salon and Slate are being measured against), small, niche web sites with low costs can and are make a profit. I certainly think the opportunity for small niche companies is far greater in the online world than it it was in the offline world.
Anyway, one of those niche markets that I have firsthand knowledge of is the role playing game publishing market. I’ve mentioned before that Steve Jackson Games (the folks who were raided by the Secret Service several years ago) took their print magazine, Pyramid, completely online. It costs me $15/month to subscribe. Along with there being a lot more content in the online version than there was in the print version, they also give subscribers the chance to playtest upcoming supplements, which is very cool.
Anyway, according to an article published by the editors at RPGNews.Com, Steve Jackson Games are not the only ones achieving success this way. There are a number of small companies selling PDF files of role playing games, supplements, cutout figures, etc. who are beginning to make a small profit (David Talbot should be so lucky).
For a lot of small companies its less a matter of being cutting edge as it is simple economics. Seth Ben-Ezra of Dark Omen Games told RPGNews that it can cost $3,000-$5,000 for a small 1500-3000 copy print run of a book. Then add advertising costs, distribution (and from my experience, distribution is the real weak point of the RPG hobby), and other assorted costs, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a profit over the long term in the role playing game business.
Dark Omen Games publishes paper books, but uses online sales of PDFs to supplement its paper offerings. A company that is completely online is MicroTactix. MicroTactix sells a role playing game and supplements, but they are best known for their card stock creations which are print and fold paper miniatures.
MicroTactix’s Guy McLimore told RPGNews that he was surprised that his company turned a profit in 2000 — much sooner than he expected. According to McLimore, “Sales are good and continue to incresae with each new release. Not surprisingly, the more products we offer, the more comfortable people feel with us as a solid firm.”
This, in my opinion, is how to succeed (and this is nothing really new, just straightforward common sense): find a niche market, work hard to become the premier supplier of a particular service or product for that market, and then charge a reasonable price.
The experience of MicroTactix, Steve Jackson Games and other is one reason why I think something like Arstechnica’s Premier Membership plan is doomed to failure. First, the market they are selling too is far too broad and poorly defined. Second, they don’t ultimately offer anything that isn’t available on dozens of other sites (although the ArsTechnica folks do it with a flair often lacking on other sites). Finally, $50 is way too much to charge for a year’s membership, and I doubt many people will want to buy a 3-month membership on impulse.
Now they may have enough dedicated users to raise enough money to make up for the deficit their running, but I’m skeptical if they can do that long term (an even bigger long-term problem they have is that the pricing structure of the discussion system they’re using is one where increased discussion traffic results in significant cost increases).
Alex Hershaft, the national chair of Animal Rights 2001, recently penned a letter to The Washington Post claiming that the newspaper’s coverage of his event was biased. For once I agree with Hershaft — The Post‘s coverage was far too sympathetic to the animal rights activists.
Hershaft was angry because The Post‘s editors chose to include a photo taken of an animal rights protest at a nearby Wendy’s in which several people, including actor James Cromwell were arrested when they blocked the restaurant’s front counter.
In his letter, Hershaft whines that “the action was neither organized nor authorized by the conference organizers.” Yeah, who would think that animal rights activists would ever protest at a restaurant? (Guest Choice Network has a page of pictures of the protest).
Of course the protest was carried out by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and, completely by coincidence I guess, Hershaft sent an e-mail out to animal rights news lists cheerfully announcing the election of PETA co-founder Alex Pacheco to the “U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame,” noting that Ingrid Newkirk was made a member last year. Maybe Hershaft thought that it was some other Alex Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk who engage in outrageous protests that tend to alienate non-believers.
Anyway, if anything The Post’s coverage was a bit on the kid gloves side. In an e-mail after the event, Hershaft touted all of the wonderful accomplishments of the conference including a screening of “Igniting a Revolution: An Introduction to the Earth Liberation Front” which was produced by the North American Earth Liberation Front Office and “discuss[es] the ideology of the ELF, and the
logic and necessity of using covert direct action to protect life on earth.”
Now a more accurate way of portraying Animal Rights 2001 would have been to take a frame of a burning building from that video and place it smack dab in the middle of the story as a representation of what the animal rights has become — even Hershaft, who tells the Post that he feels maligned at being associated with PETA’s protest, considers the screening of a documentary defending terrorism to be of enough importance to include in his after-the-fact self-congratulatory e-mail (which is a common tactic — tell the press one thing, the activists another).
In The Post‘s story, however, you have to scroll down to almost the very end to hear No Compromise‘s Jake Conroy tell the reporter, “Property damage, in my opinion, is not a violent act.”
Sources:
Animal Rights Backers Converge in Va.; National Gathering Includes Seminars, Protests, Booths. Abhi Raghunathan, Washington Post, July 5, 2001.
Animal Rights 2001: Best and Biggest Ever! Alex Hershaft, E-mail communication, July 6, 2001.
AR2001: Letter to the Wash Post. Alex Hershaft, E-mail communication, July 5, 2001.
Five activists inducted into U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame. Alex Hershaft, Email communication, July 6, 2001.