Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them.
- Image by PinkMoose via Flickr
Several months ago, the guys over at PollEverywhere wrote a blog post asking “Should we even offer a free product for teachers?” At the heart of the conversation, the issue was that while they wanted to keep free accounts for teachers, people using the service does cost them money. “Considering that we pay the mobile phone companies several cents for each text message, a disturbing proportion of free users (overwhelmingly educators) cost us over $50/user/year in texting fees, and that’s before we spend any time on customer support.” That may not seem like much, but when you start adding up the numbers, it’s a matter of dollars and cents. If it’s free for you, someone is paying for it. And considering the size of many of these Web 2.0 companies, often that ‘someone’ is the founder and/or developer.
The reason I bring this up is that I’m a big fan of free sites. One of my most popular presentations focuses strictly on free tools for educators. I know far too many teachers that make a point to only use free sites. Some do it as a point of pride, others do it due to financial considerations. The trouble is though, if a site isn’t making any money… it likely won’t be around for very long. That’s not good for anyone.
People often ask me whether they can rely on a Web 2.0 site being around for a while. Generally, I respond by telling them to look for a business model. Do they have premium features that people can subscribe to? Advertising on the site? Enterprise level solutions that business can purchase? If there’s a clear indicator for how the site is making money, then they’re probably going to be around. If there isn’t, that’s a red flag to me. Some sites like Wordle I wouldn’t stress about as much. They’re simple enough that I have a hunch that they are just paying for hosting/bandwidth at this point, which can most likely be covered by ads. However, the trade off there is that there isn’t any active development going on there. When was the last time you saw Wordle release a new feature?
Which brings me back to my point. There are some sites that I promote through my presentations and professional work. I do so because I see potential for them and believe educators can get good use out of them. I don’t get a kickback from any of these sites (besides my host, Bluehost) other than a few sites have given me a free premium account. That said, there are several sites that I use on a regular basis that I do pay for. I bought a pro version of Flickr several years ago because I thought they were one of the best sites I’d ever seen for photo sharing and I wanted to see them succeed. I have even given pro subscriptions to friends and colleagues as gifts. I’m a huge fan of Tripit.com and recently upgrade to a pro account. I’ll be honest, I don’t think the features you get for upgrading are even worth the cost, but I wanted to support the company. I love the service they provide and hope that they can stick around. That’s worth a $50 donation from me even though I’m not a fan of their premium features.
There are many sites that have created educational portals/pricing to support the things teachers are doing in the classroom. PollEverywhere is a great example of this because they literally restructured their entire free scheme around the classroom. Prezi created educator specific pro-accounts as well and have publicly stated how committed they are to supporting teachers. Other sites like Glogster and Voicethread have devoted enormous resources to making their sites better suited to teachers’ needs.
But these sites can only keep doing that if there’s money coming in. It’s a bitter pill, but that’s reality. If you love free tools, then you need to do your part to keeping them free. Consider it paying it forward. Don’t do it for every site, and don’t do it for a site you’ve never tried before. But if you’ve been using the free version of the site and think it’s something you feel is worth continuing to make use of, then consider paying for the premium version. Even if you don’t need the premium features, do it so that you can hold your head up high and know you’ve done your part to make sure that site is going to be around for the long haul. And don’t forget, as a paying customer, you usually have a more direct line to the developer’s ear. Let them know what features you think the site needs, or how it could be better suited to what you do in the classroom. That same email has a lot more weight when it comes from a subscriber rather than a free user.
I know some of you are going to say that you spend enough on the classroom already, and that the school should pick up the bill. Fine, then fight that fight. But if you can’t push that through, I hope that you consider doing something personally. It’s the only way these tools we love so much are going to be around for the long haul.
In my next post here, I’ll be sharing a new offer from PollEverywhere. I didn’t write this post to push you over to them, but they do happen to be one of the sites I’m a huge fan of. They’ve been kind enough to give me a premium account to use during presentations. However, I’m putting my own money where my mouth is and buying into the promotion as well. Why? Because I believe in what they’re doing, I believe in their commitment to education, and I want them to stick around. If they aren’t your site of choice, that’s fine. Pick another. But spend a few minutes thinking about what tools are perpetually on your ‘goto’ list and how you can help make sure they don’t go away.
Because if we don’t support the sites we can’t live without… well, you better be prepared to live without them.
What have you found worth paying for? Are you willing to pay out of your own pocket to support a site you love?
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New blog post on Teach42: Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/9RGAkT
Steve Dembo
8/17/2010
RT @teach42: New blog post on Teach42: Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/9RGAkT
Jon F. Orech
8/17/2010
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them.:
Image by PinkMoose via Flickr
Several months ago, the guys over… http://bit.ly/cbsdJd
RAMartin
8/17/2010
RT @teach42 New blog post on Teach42: Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/9RGAkT
c_rod
8/17/2010
One of the big problems web 2.0 developers have with working in the education market is that the end users (teachers and students) often don’t make the purchasing decisions. And the people who do, at least in our district, require a long and sometimes convoluted approval process that most of these small outfits, not to mention the teachers themselves, are not prepared to run through.
The result is that teachers will normally limit themselves to those offering free services. The exception, of course, are those of us crazy enough (or maybe dedicated enough
to pay our own money. For me that includes Flickr and Evernote, both of which have great free services but for a relatively small annual fee, offer excellent premium features. Both also seem to have stable business models which, as you note, is important if we really plan to rely on these online services in the long run.
timstahmer´s last blog ..An Obsession With Testing
timstahmer
8/17/2010
[...] Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – Teach42 [...]
Happiness – Possess it and be Stress FreeHow To Better Yourself | How To Better Yourself
8/17/2010
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://is.gd/emmtR #historyteacher #edchat #edmodo
mrpotter
8/17/2010
I agree with you on supporting excellent sites (just posted on this myself). Free sites are great, but take a lot to maintain. ClassTools.net (long a great free site) is now offering a paid “pro” version. I don’t like paying, but if it means keeping a site in business, I’m all for it. Some other sites, besides Edublogs, I’ve paid for (mostly out of respect) include Yola and PBWorks. Xtranormal and Animoto have also got my money because they offer low cost, pay by the production models. This works great since I only use them from time to time and can still do the free versions for shorter productions.
I can only pay for so many sites at a given time (though grants help), so I’m hoping that many sites like Glogster and Aviary remain free or have free versions without severely limited feature sets.
Mike´s last blog ..Things worth paying for
Mike
8/17/2010
I use free to air sites and platforms for several reasons:
*students can use them for free too
*teachers do not limit themselves to only learning the ones they pay for.
*The learning experience is much wider and they can in turn pass the learning on to colleagues and students.
*This engenders innovation, including the web 2.0 designers themselves.
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rosa ochoa
8/18/2010
RT @teach42: New blog post on Teach42: Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/9RGAkT
Mobl21 - MLearning
8/18/2010
Currently reading – Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – by @teach42 http://ow.ly/2re2B
nancyrubin
8/18/2010
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – Teach42 http://bit.ly/bOse4Y #edtech
Jeff Thomas
8/18/2010
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/aIPAXn
Chris Bell
8/18/2010
Good advice from @teach42 re: free web 2.0 tools: http://bit.ly/dvYRHh
Michelle Baldwin
8/18/2010
If you collaborate with your library media specialist, he/she may pay for your classes to access web 2.0 premiums! I pay for Glogster and Voicethread for the teachers who work with me!
shannon
8/18/2010
reading-Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them-by@teach42 http://www.teach42.com/2010/08/17/love-free-web-2-0-sites-then-pay-for-them/
Maureen Miller
8/18/2010
RT @teach42: Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. http://bit.ly/9RGAkT
csiwins
8/22/2010
RDG- Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – by @teach42 http://bit.ly/axCop8
Kristina Shields
8/23/2010
RT @kshields18: RDG- Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – by @teach42 http://bit.ly/axCop8
CortezHyde
8/23/2010
Thanks for the effort you took to expand upon this post so thoroughly. I look forward to future posts.
Build A Site
9/4/2010
With so many grants, booster club support, community and business supporters and classroom donations I cannot imagine it being very difficult (even for a teacher in a low socioeconomic district) to scrounge up at least $50 for something if you believe it imperative for the educational success of your students. We buy books, art supplies, videos, newspapers, costumes, and snacks – why not subscriptions?
I commend your perspective: nothing in life is free – if you believe in it, support it. Beyond that though, is if you are paying for a service, you are more likely to get the features and support you want rather than with a free service that is inundated with advertisements and cliches.
Michael Wanmer
9/5/2010
Love free Web 2.0 sites? Then pay for them. – Teach42 – http://goo.gl/98iN
Chad Lehman
9/8/2010
I believe that the constraints that teachers face on a daily basis in dealing with limited resources that are given to them would be strained even more if the tools we use, especially those in the Web 2.0 world, were now placed with a price tag. Since many of Web 2.0 services are easy to use without a login/password, this would just add to teacher frustration in using technology, rather than them embracing technology. I’m sure many web designers and developers would not be where they are today with the exposure and experience they gained being on free sites throughout their lives.
Ryan S
9/12/2010
Web 2.0 sites are great but I think if someone wants to target teachers/teaching aides then they need to also expand into something else that they can bring in other users as well. Obviously it’s often time not up to the specific teachers to make the final buying decision and we all know how tight school budgets can be. I think it’s great for developers to design free products for teachers to use but I think they need a more long term business plan if they want to keep their ideas flowing. Handing out free tools for teachers is awesome but it’s not going to bring in much money, especially if their website isn’t monetized in some way. Sometimes you just have to broaden your target audience to keep yourself afloat.
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