Freemium Ning Ditches Freebie Model

I had to look up the “word” freemium to verify its meaning, quickly confirming what I had thought it meant: the term is used to describe web services offering both free and paid access options for its members. Supposedly, if you join a site and enjoy its free services, you might be enticed to upgrade to a paid plan offering more features and a robust platform.

EZBoard Yuku

As soon as I understood the term, I realized I participated in such an arrangement when I used EZBoard (now Yuku) to power my message board communities. That eventually proved a disaster–and the community’s undoing–when a 2005 security breach resulted in many member boards being erased with most of their information permanently deleted.

That’s another story, one I would much rather forget, but that incident lead me to explore my own hosting options. Today, I use WordPress exclusively on sites I manage and control. Lesson learned.

Ning employs a freemium model or least they do at the moment. According to The Wall Street Journal, Ning is getting rid of its free option and laying off 40 percent of its workforce. Ning expects that as it moves from free to paid services many of its members will leave, thus the cutback.

Revenue Generation

Ning’s decision is based largely on web advertising income or the lack of it. Some companies, such as Facebook, seem to have found their revenue generating cash cow, but then few sites have the scale of Facebook to attract a variety of lucrative advertisers. Like some newspapers, including the Journal, Ning believes promoting a paid model is in its best interest.

At the moment, Ning claims 46 million subscribers across 300,000 active networks. Many of these networks are managed by educators and non-profits, people who are attracted to this sort of arrangement. I haven’t confirmed what the paying model will be, but a base fee of $4.95 is being considered which is also what GoDaddy charges monthly to host your website on your domain.

PR Writer

Just this morning I registered for Ning and discovered I was already participating through another network. I established my own community, PR Writer, with tentative plans to develop it into something to attract people to my press release writing services. Ning didn’t ask me if I wanted a free account so I don’t know if I’ll get an upgrade request or have my account erased when the new business model is released next month.

In any case, I’ll hold back from adding anything to PR Writer until I see if my Ning account will be around and whether this option proves worthwhile for me.

Social Connection

Yes, there is a reason why Ning and arrangements like it can be beneficial: social networks of this kind make it easier for people to find you. For no other reason if Ning brings in some customers, then it might be worth paying the token fee to them each month.

Divorcing Your Clients 101

Breaking up is hard, but sometimes customer divorce is necessary.

Once in awhile The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) publishes an article I simply must save. This past Tuesday I came across one such write-up – It Just Isn’t Working? Some File For Customer Divorce – which outlined how to bid certain clients good-bye. I immediately cut it out and decided to share my find with you.

We’ve all had them – clients we keep in order to help make ends meet or perhaps to cull some prestige by writing for their revered journal. But, deep down you may have entertained thoughts of banishing one or more of your demanding clients in a bid to recapture your sanity or perhaps to shift your energies elsewhere.

One look at the latest unemployment figures and you toss those thoughts away, but should you?

Severing Relationships

Judging by what was shared in the WSJ article, now may be a good time to remove high maintenance clients by gingerly giving them your walking papers, especially if your contractual agreement is about to come to an end.

Think about this: did you let certain clients renegotiate terms over the past year or more to their favor? Perhaps not even directly, but by default. Heck, you were so busy trying to keep you head above water that you hardly noticed that the following was happening, at least right away:

Payment Tardiness – Who likes to call a client to remind them that their payment is past due? If they’re one or two days late, you can probably handle the inconvenience, but if that same client stretches late payments out to seven, even ten days or later, does that present a hardship for you?

Don’t think for a moment that your paying a credit bill late would be overlooked; you’ll be saddled with a $39 late charge and your credit rating could take a hit.

On Demand – We freelancers pride ourselves with our customer service. I’m inspired by the level of professionalism exhibited by many of my peers, offering a clear demonstration to all that many self-employed folks certainly go the extra mile for their clients.

But, some clients take advantage of our generosity and not only push clearly marked boundaries but are bent on expanding them. The occasional special request is one thing, but not when they become the expected.

Other Work – As the WSJ article noted if you spend time chasing down delinquent payments, fulfilling special favors or doing anything else that eats up your time, that means you cannot take on work for other clients including those who may pay you more or at least on time.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been working long hours most of the past few years and I’m generally fine with that. However, when excessive hand holding, special requests, or certain changes with an agreement are demanded, then I feel used. Even abused.

Tough Times

Of course, if you have a client who is enjoyable to work with and they’ve been slammed economically like everyone else, then by all means continue with your relationship if that doesn’t cause you heartburn.

Once widespread economic recovery kicks in, I’m sure many freelancers will rethink their business relationships including asking some clients – gasp!– to pay more. Or move on.

Photo Credit: Bill Alexander