-
It’s Time To Go Pro, COW
The recent understandable loss of the Discrete Edit forum drove home the fact that the COW is a valuable tool for broadcast professionals. There is SO MUCH INFORMATION HERE it’s unquantifiable.
Looking at the public web stats for the COW I see millions of hits a month, so I’m not alone in saying that visiting the COW is a valuable part of my day.
I actually felt guilt on the awesome new mobi.creativecow.net. COW developers are creating a new, valuable tool that I’m getting for free.
Here’s what I propose:
FREE: same as now, with ads, restricted mobile access (as now)
PRO: greatly reduced ads, full access. I’m earmarked as a Pro user, like Flickr and Pounce. Very important.
The web 1.0 is way over, web 2.0 is generating real dollars, and the COW has survived it all without charging a dime to the end users.
If this was Digg or Reddit I would hesitate to pay, as it’s clearly ad-supported entertainment. But the COW is something I use every day to accellerate my business. Inasmuch as I pay for the TWiT podcast via a monthly subscription, I would pay for the COW.
To get the conversation started, I’m going to start the bidding at $49/year. If you’ve ever paid for tech support you know that’s a bargain, and remember I’m suggesting a few ads to augment the cost.
Let’s open this up to a discussion, remember the COW is a business we all want to see succeed, just like you want to succeed.
—
Rick Dolishny
Discrete Editors COW Leader
http://www.thecreativeprocess.ca -
2 Replies
-
How not to go pro:
PixelCorps. I love their podcasts and actually paid for a trial membership subscription, but it was way too inside and when I stopped paying I fell off their planet. I never heard from them again, and lost 100% of the access.
digitalweddingforum.com. I love the site, or what I’m allowed to see. I love the teaser banners for content. It looks like a group I want to join … but the sign-up was onerous, elitist, and my trial membership was actually DECLINED because I wasn’t an actual Photographer (despite holding a degree at Ryerson Photo Arts, and shooting cinematic wedding videos). A standout as how NOT to run a community. I’m sure I could have contributed much to their web forum.
—
Rick Dolishny
Discrete Editors COW Leader
http://www.thecreativeprocess.ca -
Which I guess shows how complicated this stuff is.
Thus far Ron and Kathlyn have gone for a very non-elitist approach. Everyone is welcome here, from absolute n00bs 😉 to seasoned pros and Bob Zelin.
Some people may prefer the clean and focussed (or pretentious?) attitude of other places, but this is the COW. With it’s own quirky mechanisms both from a technical and social pov.
And it works 🙂
Bar3nd
Raamw3rk – digital storytelling and visual effects
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up