Last night I spent an enjoyable and informative evening at Common in Manchester’s Northern Quarter for the very first ‘There Will be Blood’ – a better name than the apparently previously considered ‘Digital content club’.
Cryptic names aside the night was expertly compered by Manchester legend John Robb (invented the word britpop, and managed cornershop amongst other achievements) who introduced first the lovely Martin Bryant of Visit Manchester and The Next Web, and then the provocative Gordo of Manchester Confidential.
Much of the talk was, given the presence of Gordo, about how it’s possible to make money from content. A neat conclusion wasn’t reached, but Gordo’s honesty was refreshing: in the case of Manchester Confidential the controversial paywall hasn’t worked. He admitted that the company was facing the wall back in September and they introduced everything they could think of to try and turn a profit.
What has ended up making them money though is more traditional revenue streams: restaurant bookings, spa days, priority reservations and advertising. The eyes of the UK’s online and offline media have been on Manchester Confidential for the course of this experiment and the conclusion that seems to have been reached is that a straight paywall won’t work.
Users, who are used to free content, are not willing to start paying, we will however pay for something that adds value and advertisers will pay to reach a targetted audience, which bodes well for twitter’s new promoted tweets strategy.
Whatever the reason we’re inevitably coming to the point where the internet is going to have to start making the producers of its content some money. The way Gordo sees it we’re all living in a free trial, when the internet ‘began’ it’s content creators didn’t know how to make money from it so they just put content up while they worked it out.
Now though they are working it out and the free trial is coming to an end, as Gordo pointed out “it’s not all Kerry Katona; someone’s got to pay for the Baghdad Bureau”.
Bring on #twbb2
by
And on an irrelevantly relevant aside, I tour managed Cornershop for one night when their proper manager, the delightfuly titled Fat Mark, was far too wasted to do the job. His other job was singer in the marvelous Dandelion Adventure.. I could go on. Instead, read John Robbs book, Death to Trad Rock. Which is ace
Really, really enjoyed Gordo speaking last night. I’ve seen him out and about drinking and well, I haven’t always been sure how I felt about him.
But last night he spoke fluidly, intelligently, and with an obvious amount of knowledge on the subject. He definitely educated, informed and entertained (which are his core aims apparently). He should speak at more events like this.