[yvonne]

I agree that message boards, and social networking in general are a great draw to a site. In fact, the Bootleg's original site had very little activity until the BootBoard was added. However, why, in the age of Facebook, would anyone pay money solely for the purpose of having a conversation? Social networking is a driver of community, but paid content needs to be premium information.

I just got finished working on a site, skills4admins.com. The social networking will be free, but the instructional webinars and individual mentoring will be for premium members. The word premium's in there for a reason.

By the way, ESPN uses this model. The blogs and conversations are free, but they point to content, mostly recruiting information, that is behind a pay wall.

[yvonne]

I agree that message boards, and social networking in general are a great draw to a site. In fact, the Bootleg's original site had very little activity until the BootBoard was added. However, why, in the age of Facebook, would anyone pay money solely for the purpose of having a conversation? Social networking is a driver of community, but paid content needs to be premium information.

I just got finished working on a site, skills4admins.com. The social networking will be free, but the instructional webinars and individual mentoring will be for premium members. The word premium's in there for a reason.

By the way, ESPN uses this model. The blogs and conversations are free, but they point to content, mostly recruiting information, that is behind a pay wall.