Steve, Great post! I've been thinking about this a lot, and I agree with your assessment that different groups will have different cost structures and will be watered down to what the market will bear.
In terms of Frisbee dogs, a highly complex activity with only a few people qualified or capable of delivering instruction that is worthwhile, I think we're all set in terms of pricing. I'm not selling fish, I selling a fishing manuals. Flyball on the other hand is a much more simple sport in terms of behavior - run jump over some hurdles and get the ball on your box turn, jump some more hurdles and do it quickly. Not much serious instruction opportunities there. A friend of mine produced an instructional DVD for flyball with the world's best team, and the 20 minute piece retails for $30. It's good stuff, but can it be broken down into bite sized chunks? Not sure. They'll hang out for the community interaction. Agility is another highly complex sport and instruction is very expensive. It's a great fit. Dock diving? Not much serious training there. This is just to show that there are different possibilities with different topics. The specific idea I mentioned to start this thread, the jamming videos, could not retail for more than a buck or 2, but at a buck or 2 with the right players, they'd sell like hotcakes - a couple hundred should be easy, not bad for a 2-4 minute video with limited editing. While this is kind of selling the fish, and not the manual, it is also selling the manual as the disc dog world goes round by stealing tricks. This could not happen with all dog sports, and could not happen with all kinds of activities. The people we are bringing in for instructional video are not just some people. We have, perhaps, the best discdog instruction in the world (not like we have many competitors) - it's certainly world class. I'm pretty sure we can get the price I'm talking about for instructional pieces, at least in agility and Frisbee. The other stuff not so sure. I'm betting on some good crossover numbers (agility trainers looking at frisbee after good healthy exposure) and solid hardgoods sales from the various small business vendors that service the community. Rambo, I think you and I are in the same place on this. The passion that paddlers have is very close to dog sport people's passion - we're just friggin' crazy about it. I don't think many people realize how disconnected many of these communities are from 'reality'. Who spends thousands of dollars to Fiji (and pays to ship a boat!) to beat themselves up in the water for some Kukui nut lei or something. It's crazy. Who has 30 leashes and collars for their dog? Or has 13 dogs, 8 of which sleep in bed with us at a time like we do? We exist in our own little reality and there is no corporate media organization that is going to go there. It's the long tail or nothing. I am doing my best to create a community that allows for the kind of support that Jay mentioned in his earlier post. All I have to do is put them all in the same place Vendors, trainers and participants, let them interact freely, and bring their preferred commercial interests (vendors and instructors) to them on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure it'll work. I'll be happy to talk about the project offlist and give you some details. I think it could benefit your gig. BTW, your fig rig pics got me fired up to create a new one of my own. It's kind of nice. Thanks! peace, Ron Watson http://k9disc.blip.tv http://k9disc.com http://discdogradio.com http://pawsitivevybe.com On Jan 7, 2009, at 6:21 PM, Rambos Locker wrote: > Yet people pay $50 - $70 for an event DVD ????? > > Cheers Rambo > http://rambos-locker.blogspot.com > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Watkins > Sent: Thursday, 8 January 2009 9:13 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [videoblogging] Re: Profit sharing for film crews > > My opinions, for the one thing Im not short of is opinions: > > Training videos that are useful to a niche are one of the more likely > sorts of videos that some people will pay for. > > I did not like the example prices you gave at all. Depending on the > subject matter, training dvds and suchlike sometimes command a high > price tag, and different niche's will have their own ideas about how > much their stuff is worth, but I dont know as the internet customer > will bite at prices that may not compare well in terms of cost/minute > compared to dvd. > > I think the subscription model is more of a winner, but again it > depends on the niche in question. And it works best if there is a > fairly prolific quantity of new material added on a regular basis. > > When I think of multiple people & shows collaborating, a subscription > model also makes sense to me, if it adds enough value & quantity of > material to make a viewer more likely to bite. > > Collaboration has a number of big hurdles to overcome, such as all the > issues that can make human collaboration in general quite tricky > (clash of ego's, who is in control, differences of opinion, viewing > others in the same niche as competition, etc etc). Then there are the > technical issues, and also an apparent lack of large numbers of people > with both the passion for the niche and the video skills, and the > time, to pull this sort of thing off. This stuff can be overcome but > it goes part of the way to explaining why we havent seen more of this > sort of thing thus far. > > Whether its because of economic woetime, or issues of future > sustainability of our ways of life, local and community sounds like an > important part of the future. The internet, and video, will surely > figure into this in important ways, but I can hardly begin to guess > how it may turn out or exactly what form it will take. Still there are > some possible scenarios where it doesnt figure into things much at > all, never happens, where other forces lead us down a very different > path. > > So far I have not gotten a sense that videoblogging & other forms of > video on the internet have opened up many lucrative opportuinities for > many people. Those who make it through traditional mass media are > still the vast majority, and in honesty I havent seen a video for > years that made me think different or that there was about to be a big > change. The long tail has made me a tad more hopeful about humanity > but has massively failed to live up to the hype so far, in almost > every respect. > > Cheers > > Steve Elbows > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
