Here is Mark's reply: Chuck and Tim,
10% of MoveDigital trials become paying customers. We run cash positive on user acquisition even off of Google Adwords. We spend $35-50 to acquire users and they spend $72 within 3 months. We are running infrastructure negative because we need more paying users or more higher paying users. This is a viral, SEO issue. The service is incredibly fair from price and billing perspective. It is now even more so since we just turned the service into a co-op. How do we make our money then? Two ways: ultimately from "software as a service" fees and from retail purchases of MoveDigital in conjunction with various storage devices. Our "decremental" billing patent enables us to operate the service unlike any other entity. The problem is the benefits of the patent are indistinguishable from incremental monthly billing services online because people fall for the sucker punch offers instead of opting to pay for what they use. But in retail the decremental model creates a substantial barrier and gives us a complete lock on that marketing channel. We have the patent on the prepaid phone card for bandwidth. We just need the market to catch up with us. Every gallon of milk you buy is on a prepaid basis. We just need to get people used to buying bandwidth in the same manner. You also ultimately have to assume people value having files over streaming. There is an interactive component to streaming which creates inherent advantages as it relates page views and advertising but for quality, portability and sharing files rule. I believe we do have to address the interactive component and that is why we built our embeddable player. Today the ad model wins. It is so much more profitable to be paid for ads instead of bandwidth. As smart as Akamai looks they look pretty dumb next to Google. But as files approach higher quality levels the ad model begins to break because it's hard to cover the 2GB delivery of a file to a thousand people on a CPM basis. That is why we are beginning to see the blended P2P CDN everywhere. It's mostly wishful thinking. The problem is this story is as old as Kontiki. Users are not willing to give up their upstream bandwidth and wreck their VOIP, etc... without some form of compensation. The easy solution is to stay away from longer form higher quality content but soon people are going to want to distribute the files from their HD camcorders in the same resolution the footage is captured in. The long term reality is that our model works, the short term reality is that we are ahead of our window by a small amount of time. It's worth keeping the service up and I know MoveDigital obviously could benefit from Tim's wisdom. Nominally we need $25K to take care of co-location provider but we really need the full $39K to completely zero out our payables. Other than that we are debt-free and own all of our gear. I hope this helps and am available for further dialogue any time over the weekend. Kind regards, Mark --- In [email protected], "Chuck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hey Tim, > > What's wrong with them paying their rent? > > They provide a great service. > > I don't know what their biz model is. > > I'll forward this to Mark and reply back with what he says. > > Chuck > > --- In [email protected], "tim@" <tim@> wrote: > > > > Hey Chuck, > > > > What is their business model? > > > > If we donate, how are they going to use the money to not just pay > > their rent - how are they going to be profitable? > > > > Tim > > > > Tim Street > > Creator/Executive Producer > > French Maid TV > > The Viral Video of "How To's" by French Maids > > http://frenchmaidtv.com > > Subscribe for FREE at: http://www.frenchmaidtv.com/itunes > > > > MY BLOG: http://1timstreet.blogspot.com/ > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Nov 2, 2007, at 6:27 PM, Chuck wrote: > > > > > MoveDigital is a great service that makes the lives of podcasters > and > > > videobloggers MUCH easier. I learned about them through RocketBoom > > > and have been a VERY happy customer. > > > > > > They are not a perfect company and can't do everything. But what > > > they DO do, they do very well. I feel I have easily got my money's > > > worth and I doubt any of their customers think any differently. > > > Their prices are very affordable. > > > > > > They are in peril of going out of business due to failing to get > > > their next round of funding. Having carried all of my belongings > out > > > of my office in a cardboard box during the Dot.Com days, I know > how > > > that feels. > > > > > > PLEASE consider helping MoveDigital out. They are doing cool stuff > > > for vloggers and podcasters and they good folks. They need $39,000 > > > by THIS Monday to keep going. I'm not made of cash but I scraped > up > > > $100 to donate to them. I bet if you could do the same or less, it > > > could really help out. At a minimum, please pass on to those who > > > care about vlogging and podcasting that one of our own is in need. > > > > > > MoveDigital's PayPal ID is billing@ > > > > > > Have a good day. > > > > > > Chuck Boyce, NYC > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > >
