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Let's Face it Folks, It is time to PAY Activerain

By Maureen Francis

Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

September 28, 2007 08:43 AM

I have been talking about how this thing we know as ActiveRain will be monetized since the day I landed here in August of 2006. Given the whole "situation" with Move.com, it looks like everyone is thinking about it now. AR's owners (am I the only one who wonders WHO they all are???) deserve to make some money for what they are doing here. No matter who they chose to buy them out, my guess is that many of us will not be pleased. That is just logical.

So it is time for those of you who want this network to stay independent, and free of ownership from an entity you don't endorse to figure out how AR can make money for its owners.

Bring forth your great ideas. Personally, I think AR is ready for some kind of paid membership, but I know many of you disagree.

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Carole Cohen

Howard Hanna Cleveland City Office - Cleveland, OH

Realtor, ePRO

MF: I think I figured out this afternoon why the AR guys don't want to charge; as you know, Jonathan wrote a post saying it's free and it always will be (which presumablly means through their ownership anyway). If they charge as we've seen in the discussion, there will be fewer members

I think they won't charge because the bigger the membership the more the company is worth on the open market. Just my opinion.

Sep 30, 2007 11:07 AM

. .

San Diego, CA

Sally, I'm simply voicing an opinion. If you don't care, then why the attack? Why can't you debate an issue instead of coming after the person?

And exactly what point have you been trying to prove, other than that you don't like me?

Sep 30, 2007 11:31 AM

Maureen Francis

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

Carole,

Yeah, I have done a 180. Actually I threw the notion out there to let other people voice there opinions to help me formulate mine. Charging will not work. Their goal is to sell, and they need members and content to do that. Without those things, they have nothing to sell. There are some interesting discussions going on out there in the blogosphere about this whole thing, and I have to say that my thoughts and feelings have been transformed by some of them.

Bob, I find your interest in AR now intriguing. You have been observing for a long time. What makes you comment now after over a year of relative silence. Don't get me wrong, your comments are welcomed here.

Sep 30, 2007 12:10 PM

. .

San Diego, CA

I have been asking the question of monetization since my first post. After Inman in 2006, I was told by many who talked to the "AR Gods" that they were not in this for the money.

I have made over 100 comments since then, so I've not been entirely quiet. I don't write many blog posts because there has been nothing in writing explaining ownership rights with regard to content and I don't build content for others for free. I have created and sold online properties for some time, so now that the Move.com issue is front and center, it's something of interest to me.

The lawsuit and the way details were leaked to Inman makes it even more interesting because it addresses the two main issues with AR - how is it monetized, and who owns the content. While I understand that many have learned and gained a great deal here, both of those issues should have always been of interest to all members.

Thanks for the welcome.

Sep 30, 2007 12:48 PM

Maureen Francis

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

Bob, I didn't ask about the monetization plan until my 5th post in August of 2006. Nobody responded.

Sep 30, 2007 01:03 PM

David Nichols

The Nichols/Ersery Home Team, RE/MAX Heartland - Lee's Summit, MO

Leenulls Summit Real Estate

I would pay a small fee to be here... say 25 bucks a year

Oct 01, 2007 01:05 PM

Ken Horst

MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes - Minneapolis, MN

I think Activerain should play out the free thing and become a media asset like so many other sites. Bottom line is when you get to 1,000,000 visitors per month all around the topic of real estate, it is worth someting to advertisers. Rather than pay-to-play I would just as soon have AR continue to sell advertising and grow that side of their business.

Oct 01, 2007 05:02 PM

Julie Chapman

Julie Chapman Broker - Ormond Beach, FL

Daytona Beach Shores, Florida

We don't work for free.......so........

Oct 01, 2007 08:23 PM

Todd Crilley

NWIDreamHomes.com - Munster, IN

Let me be real honest,I dont feel like you should have to pay for helping not only each other but the public as well. In todays day and age we pay for to much anyway, Please dont "Rain" on my parade activerain.

Oct 02, 2007 02:47 PM

Dave Cheatham

INC Financial - Bartlett, IL

I vote for free and use the dynamic that myspace uses to get money. They are getting 20 million a month just to put on ads. We can do that on AR with google and some others that do not hurt us at AR.

Oct 04, 2007 08:19 AM

Everard Korthals

---Preferred Lifestyle Advisors--- - Lancaster, PA

Mountain Realty

this is a real throwback post to where the whole idea perhaps started.

Feb 17, 2009 10:08 AM

Maureen McCabe

HER Realtors - Columbus, OH

Columbus Ohio Real Estate

I visited this post yesterday for old times sake...back now because of the new comment

Feb 17, 2009 10:11 AM

Maureen Francis

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

Wow. I wrote this!? How quickly we forget. Castellum Realty, what brought you to this post? And MM, what brought you here yesterday?

If the idea started here, I want some royalties ;-)

Feb 17, 2009 10:15 AM

Missy Caulk

Missy Caulk TEAM - Ann Arbor, MI

Savvy Realtor - Ann Arbor Real Estate

Well, well Maureen a post is revived on AR. 17 months later.

Feb 17, 2009 10:16 AM

Maureen Francis

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

Jonathan Washburn (ActiveRain Corp): Real Estate Agent in Seattle, WA

NO CHARGE!!! :)

We have some great (IMHO) business models that we have put together and they don't involve charging for participation. Frankly, I am absolutely honored that so many of you would be willing to support this network (our overhead) through your willingness to pay a subscription fee, but bottom line is that it won't happen.

For various reasons, today is a pretty busy day for me, but I will do my best to put up a blog post that talks about some of our planned revenue models.

09/28/2007 04:18 PM

by Jonathan Washburn (ActiveRain Corp)

Delete Report as Spam

Feb 17, 2009 10:24 AM

Everard Korthals

---Preferred Lifestyle Advisors--- - Lancaster, PA

Mountain Realty

well i was looking for your localism post, "localism in motion",afterwhich it would be added to our new localism compendium.

Feb 17, 2009 10:32 AM

Maureen McCabe

HER Realtors - Columbus, OH

Columbus Ohio Real Estate

MF I was reading a post I wrote about the same time...with a link to this post, I went looking for a post I'd written because of something that was in the Inman article about AR yesterday.

Feb 17, 2009 11:02 AM

Jon Washburn

Seattle, WA

(I posted this on the "New Membership Plan" post as well.)

Maureen,

In order to get the full meaning from the comment I made the reader needs to understand the context of the conversations taking place on the network at the time. When it was published there was much discussion on ActiveRain that our members would invest time into the network under the premise that it was free and then once they were committed we would start charging them to continue maintaining their blog.

In my comment I made two primary statements:

1. "We have some great business models that we have put together and they don't involve charging for participation."

This was true. We did have business models that did not involve charging for participation. Advertising is one example.

2. "Frankly, I am absolutely honored that so many of you would be willing to support this network through your willingness to pay a subscription fee, but bottom line is that it won't happen."

In this statement I was speaking to the existing members ("so many of you") and was attempting to reassure them that we would not start to charge them a subscription fee for basic service.

Our new plan maintains this commitment to not charge our existing members a subscription fee, and our new members are still offered a basic membership to ActiveRain for free.

Obviously at that time we did plan to offer subscription services for participation in certain aspects in the network - just not basic access for existing members.

We have not been shy to put our plans and commitments down in writing on our network. This is rare for businesses in this day and age when most try to leave as many outs as possible. We have done everything within our power to be transparent and forthright and then to honor our commitments. We will continue to strive to honor these commitments into the future. We will make mistakes but we will always first try to do what is right.

Feb 17, 2009 06:07 PM

Maureen Francis

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel - Bloomfield Hills, MI

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel

Jonathan,

I support your right to make money on activerain as much now as I did when I wrote this post. I did not quote you as a criticism. I quoted you because I thought it was interesting to look back in time. You kept your word.

Feb 18, 2009 12:05 PM

Jon Washburn

Seattle, WA

Thank you for your follow up comment, I was worried that you thought that I said one thing and did another. My integrity is important to me.

I remembered this post specifically when we were drafting our announcement post and I KNEW that someone would take at least one old quote and bring it back. I would never even try to pull a fast one on our members - if for no other reason than I could never get away with it.

Feb 18, 2009 05:31 PM