Some People Pay For Content

from the but-just-a-few dept

Wed, Jul 10th 2002 6:18pm — Mike Masnick

A new study shows that (not all that suprisingly) a few sites out there are gaining some traction in getting people to pay for online content. However, most people are still unwilling to pay. The article lists some of the sites that get the most traction. They list NCSoft's site as the biggest one, though, I'm not sure if I'd really count that. They're really talking about players of the Lineage video game (mostly in Asia). Second on the list is Classmates.com, who has been charging people from the very beginning. They also mention dating sites as getting a lot of people to pay. The one that still surprises me, though, is the number of people who pay for American Greetings to use their electronic cards. There are still plenty of free online greeting card sites, so I don't really understand the incentive to go with the pay versions.

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Daniel James, 10 Jul 2002 @ 10:25pm

NCSoft -- Lineage
Ahem, NC's big game is Lineage, not Legacy.
The 4 million number is misleading because the majority of those players are in PC Bang (PC Game Rooms) -- although the proportion of at-home subscribers is climbing towards 50%. Broadband penetration in Korea is v. impressive.
Thanks for a splendid site.
Daniel
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Mike (profile), 10 Jul 2002 @ 11:18pm

Re: NCSoft -- Lineage
Ooops. You're right. I had meant to check that, but then I didn't. My mistake. It's been corrected. Thanks for pointing it out (and for adding more background info).

Thanks.
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