Why Paying For Information Makes Sense

I think we might rename the Synopsis field of the article summary page to something like "Why Buying My Article is Better Than Searching for this Information."

We've been on a fund raising tour for the last couple of weeks and at a recent meeting with some angel investors, one guy fired up Google and asked us "Why would I pay for content when I can find several million hits on any given topic for free?"

That's a great question, one I think every Yepic author should think through thoroughly before pricing an article. I know there's value in UGC . . . I often discover more value in UGC than content I regularly and happily pay for. And a fresh new batch of market research from eBay confirms that people are buying UGC by the millions each month. But that doesn't mean it's easy to be a UGC entrepreneur. It would be a mistake to interpret the eBay data as evidence that it's simple to sell people your thoughts on a subject. People will need some convincing before they'll be willing to plunk down any money at all for some content, much less content they think they might be able to get free elsewhere.

What follows are my suggestions on how to answer this question.

Why Buying My Article is Better Than Searching for This Information

First, I think every Yepic article should be fully aware of and incorporate as much as possible of what I call the G20, which stands for the Google 20. What can you find on Google after conducting 20 minutes of search on your chosen topic? Generally speaking, if the jist of what you've written is readily available with search, you shouldn't be posting it on Yepic. You need to provide much more than that. I think it's a great idea to begin your article with a summary of what you found doing 20 minutes of Google search. Or 2 hours. The more you can convince your prospect that they're not going to quickly find what you've written anywhere else, the better a shot you have at getting them to buy.

The G20 is also a useful exercise in that it gives you some insight into the major trends that exist within your topic. I researched Thanksgiving for a few hours, for example, and found that almost everything in the first 3 pages of Google results had to do with Thanksgiving history, recipes and other food how-to, and/or arts and crafts. If I were to create a "Best of the Web" Yepic article on Thanksgiving, one that collated all of the best recipes and how-to (including instructional videos and podcasts), the best historical data, and the best arts and crafts for the season, and if I were to pitch my prospect on the fact that spending $2 on my article would be much more productive than spending 3 hours Googling (something I've already done for them), particularly if they're looking for info on any one of the 3 big trends . . . now we're starting to approach content someone will pay for. Considering the fact that "Thanksgiving" was the most searched-for term on Google (source: Zeitgeist) for the two weeks preceding the holiday, such an article might have done very well. I've always thought one of the best Yepic applications would be a series of articles that incorporates the Best of the Web for any of Google's Zeitgeist topics.

On a more theoretical note, I'd like to speak more directly to that investor's question:

A search for "How to" on eBay reveals thousands and thousands of UGC titles selling for under $10. Subjects range from "how to mix water colors" to "how to tame a wild boar." We have a friend who's wife used to sell baby bracelets on eBay and had a pretty loyal following, and her consumers quickly snatched up a 4-page "How to make a baby-bracelet" PDF she put together for the do-it-yourself crowd. And recent research we've conducted using eBay's new Marketplace Research tool shows that millions of dollars worth of these types of articles sell every month. There are several other sites where people can sell PDFs and eBooks, too. These models aren't new. Many of them sprung up when the Internet first became popular, and this content sells in spite of the fact that there is free information on the topic that's readily available with a little searching elbow-grease. They're full of pain for both buyers and sellers--a pain we're seeking address with Yepic--but they do constitute proof positive that there is existing demand and supply for paid UGC.
So why do people pay?
I've addressed this in another post, but the short answer is I think most of the free information on the web that I'm really interested in was crafted for a different purpose than satisfying my need for information. That purpose? The author's recreation. Most people contribute to the web recreationally. It's fun to do on a Thursday night when you have a couple of hours. This ultimately means that any overlap between their need for recreation and my need for information is most likely accidental. Hence the web is filling up faster than ever before--more than 12,000 new blogs per minute--and yet I still struggle to find out the best way to take a Western Carribean cruise.

Why is this recreational model the most prevalent one on the Internet today? Well, is sure isn't because people aren't interested in making money. Pew Internet's recent survey on bloggers showed that fully 2 million of them are interested in finding new ways to monetize their content. We think the reason recreational models are creating more content than paid models is simply because there hasn't been a marketplace suited to the creation, sale, and distribution of true Web 2.0 content. That's something we're seeking to remedy with Yepic.