TWCL

smbhax.com

Apparently the "Shoutbox" messaging widget a lot of webcomics have in their sidebar is going paid-only starting in January.

Excerpts from the long official announcement:

Quote:

The conversion rate did not go up. In fact it fell lower. Our stats show 99.93% of users either have no intention to upgrade or are just happy with our free service. Worst of all, some customers have actually stopped paying and switched to our free service! It may seems to be good news for everyone right now, but it is really bad news for all of us.

By offering too much with our free plan, we cannibalized our paid plans. Happy users did not make more paying customers. The projections are bad. Only 0.07% users are customers. These are the people who keep ShoutMix sustainable as a business. Business is the part making ShoutMix exists for everyone. If it keeps on going this way, ShoutMix will not be sustainable any more and will need to close down in the near future.

The freemium model is broken for us.

Quote:

Existing users will be able to continue using their accounts at no cost right now. The transition will begin within a few weeks. Eventually, users with free accounts will need to switch to a paying plan or stop using the service. The date is set at January 1, 2012. After this date, free accounts will stop working unless upgraded to a paid plan.

The good news is that ShoutMix will be available for only $0.99/month and will be available effective immediately. For our old version (the Classic) it will only be available in Premium package which costs approximately $1.67/month.

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wendyw · Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:40 pm Post subject:

So, if I'm getting this right what they're saying is that they improved the free version (primarily designed to lead customers who want a better version to pay for the full version) to the point that it was too good and it negatively effected the sign up for the paid version.

So, why didn't they just remove the features they added to the free version, issuing a statement similar to this one explaining why they had to do it, thereby fixing their issue with people moving away from/failing to sign up for the paid version and still leaving them with a way to pull in new (potentially paying) users who may upgrade later on?
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Blog

dpat57 · Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2011 10:50 pm Post subject:

Yeah I noticed the notice the other day... gulped a little... I guess I've had it too good for too long. Smile

Shrug, I don't really grudge anyone asking for money to meet their server and services costs. So, $4.90/mo or lose my 6 shoutboxes...
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smbhax.com · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 5:10 am Post subject:

That's a good question, wendy, although it kind of sounds like they weren't really thrilled about the free scene anyway, so maybe they figure this is just the last straw and a good excuse to pull that plug anyway.

Seems to me they must be kinda facing competition from like Twitter feed boxes and the like now, too.
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Varethane · Joined: 18 Apr 2008 Posts: 547

What?!

Oh... oh no! D: I've been using mine for awhile and I like it well enough, but... I'm not sure I want to start paying..... If they introduced new features I didn't even notice, I only get a few comments a month anyway and I'm going to have to really think about how much this thing is worth to me now. Blehh....
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Eve Z. · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 657

That kind of sucks. -.- If they do that, I'm going to give up my shoutbox totally. Because I won't pay for something that's almost inactive.
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Varethane · Joined: 18 Apr 2008 Posts: 547

Do you know if any of the other tagboards are any good? tag-boards.com, etc?

/poking around Teh Googles
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Bad Example · Joined: 07 Dec 2011 Posts: 78

Varethane wrote:

Do you know if any of the other tagboards are any good? tag-boards.com, etc?

/poking around Teh Googles

I'm using http://www.freeshoutbox.net/ and it's not bad. AND - it's free.

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http://badexamplecomics.com (admin had not yet updated me with the signature I asked so... this is my manual signature)

n9uxu · Joined: 28 Mar 2008 Posts: 576 Location: Michigan

I use cbox... or at least I did until I opted out of having a shout-type box in order to drive more folks to the comment system and fight link-spam...

Dave

Metruis · Joined: 14 Oct 2008 Posts: 992 Location: Canada

Shout boxes are a relic. Get IntenseDebate.
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smbhax.com · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 5:55 am Post subject:

But relics are valuable! =o
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Varethane · Joined: 18 Apr 2008 Posts: 547

I considered that.... but, I kind of feel like I like the tagboard better! D: It's so small and self-contained, and puts all the comments into one place instead of spreading them around the site.

Maybe I am just a weirdo like that :C
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R(ed) · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject:

Hah, I actually have a Shoutbox? Thanks for the reminder. Rolling Eyes

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dpat57 · Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:35 pm Post subject:

Bad Example wrote:

I'm using http://www.freeshoutbox.net/ and it's not bad. AND - it's free.

Yeah, that's working fine, thanks...

Free, until someone decides otherwise. Smile

I could'a signed up as originally planned but turns out that new shoutboxes start afresh (I asked) without the old comments, so moving onto another shoutsomething isn't a great wrench.
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soulmate · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 1

I think http://free-shoutbox.net is even better than those and is free as well! Smile