Majority of Park Slope Parents Won't Pay to Play
We asked, you responded: If the survey we ran yesterday is to be believed, slightly more than half of the subscribers to the Park Slope Parents group are unwilling to pay anything for the service; only 20 percent are happy to pay the proposed $25 fee (or more). Yikes. That does not bode well. We…
We asked, you responded: If the survey we ran yesterday is to be believed, slightly more than half of the subscribers to the Park Slope Parents group are unwilling to pay anything for the service; only 20 percent are happy to pay the proposed $25 fee (or more). Yikes. That does not bode well. We suspect they’re going to have to back away from this idea.
Park Slope Parents to Start Charging for Membership [Brownstoner]
BREAKING NEWS—
The “original†group just posted that there is yet ANOTHER group!
The Free Park Slope Parents
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFREEParkSlopeParents/
To subscribe, send a blank message to: TheFREEParkSlopeParents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You cannot compare PSP with Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports has an entire division of researchers who test products, test drive cars and they take no advertisements to avoid conflict of interest. They also publish a magazine which takes printing costs, editorial and design fees.
You can’t compare PSP with the food coop because the coop is like Costco, it takes a membership fee because it is a buying club.
You can’t POSSIBLY compare PSP with WNYC which needs to pay salaries to REPORTERS to go in the field and report on actual news and CREATE original content. Members Pay the salaries of people like Brian Lehrer. Members help BUY programming which is expensive such as Fresh Air.
What PSP wants is for the community to pay their salaries because the founder is sick of volunteering her time. No problem with them getting salaries, but there are other ways to raise money without asking people to pay them. They just aren’t providing enough original content to justify asking people to pay for it.
“unlike northsloperenter i can think of a couple websites that charge and that i even pay for personally:
zagats
consumerreports”
I specifically meant “community” sites. I know there are successful subscription online (I work for one and subscribe to another).
zagats is an interesting example though as their content is community derived, but they do a great deal of work in indexing and organizing that content, e.g., making sure all the restaurants are listed under the correct neighborhood and cuisine — not to mention averaging the results of thousands of voters for hundreds of restaurants.
zagats is also building off a well established brand, but as places like Brownstoner, Curbed?, etc. start providing very very similar databases for free, I wonder how long zagats business model will survive. Brownstoner doesn’t have enough restaurant reviews yet, but already is probably the resource I would check for Brooklyn restaurants first.
Likewise, I think PSP can succeed for a couple of years before other free sites reach a critical mass of users/content to challenge them.
In any event, it looks like the decision for PSP’s owner has more to do with personal reasons than business reasons.
i think one of the reasons this won’t work is the content just isn’t good enough.
unlike northsloperenter i can think of a couple websites that charge and that i even pay for personally:
zagats
consumerreports
the difference is instructive. i will pay $25 a year but only for something as extensive, well presented, with functionality enhancements (comparative graphs, filters, search by location) as the sites above.
psp doesn’t even come close. this is a classic situation of a founder not realizing that their baby is average at best.
As a parent who regularly has stuff to give away or buy, I’ve used PSP — mainly the Classifieds (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ParkSlopeParents_Classifieds/). I’ve also used Bococa Parents (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bococa_parents/) and Craigslist.
Each time I need to post, I typically start with Bococa and Craigslist because it is a crap shoot whether the PSP moderators will actually post my items. I’ve had the moderators reject various things – from free baby items to furniture. It is really just ridiculous… It is a List Serv! We, the parent community, are their content providers. I’m not a SAHM so I generally don’t have the time to sift through conversations about the gender of hats, dog poop, and the merits of any number of other items.
When they migrated to their website, I didn’t find most of the content that useful. I still don’t. And they advertise there – so if their advertising revenue isn’t drawing in enough revenue, maybe they should rethink their service.
So forgive me – but I’ll stay a loyal Bococa Parent.
When much of the internet is free, it seems outrageous to fork over $25 for a little neighborhood-specific listserv. They sound greedy.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait! You have to pay a DEPOSIT to join the co-op?
Okay, confession time. Today I went to Park Slope. I went to the fabled co-op even, and yes the daycare was delightful and the selection of golden organic beets was astonishing. But the place was so crowded that the aisles were impassable. “Why,” I asked my friend who got me in the door, “don’t they just take their purchasing power, popularity, and branding and open more locations?”
Apparently that’s something other people have wondered as well, but they’re not doing it.
Someone wearing a sign walked us to her car. I guess it was his work assignment.
Okay, this is a random share, sorry for veering off topic.
I’m sure the PSP has noble reasons for wanting to charge a fee, but it’s like the co-op requiring a deposit. (And pre-registration before orientation, according to the sign.) It isn’t the amount of the fee that’s a pain, it’s the hoop-jumping required. And who, pray tell, is going to keep track of subscriptions? Customer service?
I think maybe PSP, like the co-op, could actually make do with a great deal less in terms of the volunteer manpower keeping it going.
Yeah, I saw that. As is often the case, it seems the decision was made before the debate began.
Good luck to them…
From reading the latest post by the founder of PSP, they have no intention of backing off their plan. Despite numerous suggestions of alternative ways to raise money, they are plowing ahead–they think they’re in the right.