A word going around the internet in the business side of the web is “paywall.” Now, it seems that Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. wants to put one of its products behind this “paywall,” that product is Vidgle. In 2009, Vidgle had an estimated 20,000 viewers and 30,000 downloads.
Vidgle has grown over the past quarter. Jenthony reported that it reached over 25,000 downloads in the first quarter of 2010. “We may reach our 30,000 download hit in May, or earlier, outranking our downloads in the entire year of 2009,” said Maria O’Connell, director of reporting and second in command webmaster.
“Vidgle is not generating enough revenue,” in a company statement. “The company demands a paywall to be put up.” It’s not a decision that Anthony Zaragoza, founder and general manager of Vidgle, wants to do. “Something needs to get done,” Zaragoza said. The company forced developers to install a paywall system called”Vidgle Plus” in 2009 during the Vidgle 2.0 engine launch in September; that paywall system was successfully installed but not activated.
“There is no advertising going on,” said Anthony Zaragoza. “That is why a paywall needs to go up. If we can get advertising going on our video streams, this might not happen. The issue here is that this is a new medium and sponsor don’t want to waste dollars during the financial crisis.”
The company wants to charge viewers either a $5 a month subscription or pay a 99 cent pay-per-download (ppd). Currently, Anthony Zaragoza is planning that videos that are older than 2 years old will get behind the paywall, while videos that are younger than two years old will not be behind the paywall. Instead, the company wants to have all videos behind the paywall, Zaragoza refused to take that action.
“Users can download the videos through our podcast feed and keep it forever,” Anthony Zaragoza added. “We think there shouldn’t be any complaints right there. … The paywall is going to be up for archival purposes to watch content and information that are out of date. So far this year, there have already been over 10,000 downloads from videos published in 2008; and another 10,000 downloads from 2009; this shows our archive episodes are still living.”
The main issue is that will anybody be “willing” to pay for an episode (or subscribe) for Vidgle’s archives. “Con Goer, not the show, enthusiasts may,” said Anthony Zaragoza. “I believe someone years from now will be willing to watch a interview with Voltaire that we recently aired.”
The show “Con Goer,” the flagship show of Vidgle, is going to have many ethical issues if a paywall is to be put up. “Some conventions don’t allow press organizations that charges users to be welcomed as a press organization,” said director of “Con Goer” Anthony Zaragoza.
In recent news, Hulu will be launching a test subscription service in May that will cost $9.95. Five of the most recent episodes will be kept online for free while older episodes need to be subscribed to the subscription. It was a coincidence that the subscription service is called “Hulu Plus” while “Vidgle Plus” is the tentative name of Vidgle’s paywall.
Another paywall system in recent news was with Jenthony’s former Internet Service Provider “Cablevision Systems Corp.” with Newsday. In March, it was announced that the $4 million paywall setup only received 35 subscribers. “The catch is that this is just a marketing technique,” Anthony said. “I know Cablevision was going to put up this paywall just like with News 12.com, so they can keep their customers, both through their internet serviceand newspaper. They don’t care if they got 35 online subscribers, I am actually not surprised by that number, I thought it would of been lower.”
Zaragoza has been studying paywall tactics since 2007. “I will definitely keep on top of the Hulu test since it can be compared to our setup,” said Anthony Zaragoza concluding his statements. “The only paywalls I was able to research are newspapers, now a huge video streaming site is putting up a test paywall, lets see how it goes.”
A viewer survey will be posted on the Vidgle website in the upcoming weeks to determine if a paywall will be successful on the website.
Need an internship credit for the fall? Well don’t I have a place where you can intern! That place is Jenthony Media, the parent company of WRAJ Internet Radio and Vidgle.com. We only select a few per college semester so apply quickly! Note that we strongly recommend you to talk to your college’s career services before applying. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know
The internship posting is here:
Position: Content Producer, Jenthony Media
Students will be able to help produce content for the online media platform of Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. Including its online radio station, WRAJ Internet Radio; audio podcast; video podcast, Vidgle; websites, and mobile platforms.
Requirements that we have established for internship at Jenthony Enterprises, Inc:
• You must be 16 years of age or older
• For this program, you must receive an academic credit, it is necessary to set up the internship with your school
• The internship program will not provide transportation reimbursement costs
• You must be enrolled at an accredited four or five-year college or university.
• You also must be on track to receive a bachelor or advanced degree from a college or university.
This job posting is available in:
• Fall Semester
• Spring Semester
Students can fax their cover letter and resume to 1-413-521-5976. They can also send their cover and resume through email to internship@wrajradio.com as a word (.doc) file (formatted for Word 2003) or PDF file. Students who are accepted will be contacted by phone or email. Students are encouraged not to call the company.
We will then schedule an interview with the student. Students will be contacted within two weeks after the interview if they are approved.
Wow, I did a lot of things last weekend. I first went to Baltimore for a conference, which is mainly about expanding my company Jenthony, which owns and operates WRAJ Internet Radio and Vidgle. After entering a new chapter earlier this year with podcasting, now it will be entering a new chapter later this year. It will be the launch of SavePointDesigns, which we will be designing and selling t-shirts online and at conventions we plan to attend. I hope to talk more about this exciting new chapter in a few weeks.
It was Jen’s birthday on Sunday. Jon, Chris, Jeff, Merideth, Fred, Mike, and Sarah was over to celebrate, and so was the rest of the family! Above is a picture of a cake Sarah made, it is suppose to be the Final Smash Ball from Super Smash Bros. Brawl (and yes, it can be the spinning pinwheel of death).
To see pictures from Jen’s birthday party, click here.
If you noticed in my Facebook feed that I have posted notes called “HTTP 404 > Not Found.” It turns out it was one of the problems I had with my site last night, as more than 400 people accessed the site at one time which caused the servers to crash. If you didn’t know, Facebook imports my notes from my blog at anthonyzaragoza.com which sits on wrajradio.com.
And with this trouble, I must bring your attention of a video that I must show you. This video was for a science project that I worked on with Niki and Tonia, it is meant to be posted on the internet to spread the word that Five Towns College is not going green! Don’t worry, I didn’t use my full journalism skills for this video as we had a short time with the video and footage. It has a low quality because of the way YouTube accepts videos. The video took a few days to create because we are getting ready for the future of video editing in my offices! You can watch the video by clicking here. Be warned, what you about to hear is true! I don’t know if we had the best presentation in the class, but our science professor asked us if she can show this to the administration, so I said “sure, why not.”
Well, I’ve been getting a lot of complaints, especially from friends, about the photo gallery on my site. Las week, I embedded new coding that prevents people from downloading the images posted on the gallery; and second I placed a wrajradio.com bug on top of the image incase if someone Print-Screens the image.
I’ve done this after weeks of discussing with several members at the station and legal department. And then after an agreement, we put the new coding.
And I after I posted the Anime Boston 2007 pictures on my site, many people started emailing me with the complaints. “Your just another faceless webguy to me now,” said a WRAJ Internet Radio staff member in a conversations a few minutes ago.
We also stated that if any image downloaded or captured any image in the photo gallery, we will take legal action. Which is true, even to people I know, so if you want to put any image up anywhere else (including MySpace, Facebook, Photobucket, etc.), you will need to have written permission (can be done in email) to use the image outside of the site. This rule has been with my site since the beginning (2003), and now we are beginning to enforce the rule.
And I want to let everyone know that this coding is final and will never be put down.
April Fools! I’m not moving… yet… to San Francisco. I am actually planning to move to either San Francisco or Florida within the next few years. I’m not looking for a place yet until a few months before my college graduation.
Several people took this seriously, but this might happen sooner than you think!
I have some news that some of you might find upsetting. After searching for a new home for many months, I just leased a new apartment in San Francisco and I will be moving into my new home in the summer. The apartment is located in Cow Hollow, off of Union and Webster street. The apartment is pretty cool, it has a great view of the city and the bay, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, a kitchen, and a den. I am looking for a room-mate, so call me up if you are interested and I’ll let you know how much it will cost and everything.
I am planning to attend New College (which is nearby San Francisco) for the fall to continue my mass communications major.
Many people questioned me, what will happen to WRAJ? WRAJ Internet Radio, as well as Jenthony Enterprises, Inc., will be moving into my new home as well. I am planning Friday, July 27, 2007, will be the last day of the station broadcasting from Long Island.
I hope no one will be upset by the news. I will promise to stop by Long Island from time to time when I move into my new home.
By demand (I’m assuming), there are now more pictures from I-CON in the Photo Gallery on wrajradio.com. Click here to see them.
Videos are still coming as we launch our new Video Gallery section with Video Podcasting technology by the end of this week.
And this Friday for School, Mary and I are going to put on some of our costumes (Mary will wear her ears and I will wear my Mario Hat and bring the Shrooms) and we will wear it to school!
It’s true, the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) and CRB (Copyright Royalty Board) is trying to increase the rates for streaming royalties that can force thousands of internet radio broadcasts/stations, including WRAJ Internet Radio, to shut down. As of now, the new rates are not in effect and WRAJ Internet Radio will continue to broadcast until any future notices.
The new rates are crazy, I will be paying DOUBLE the amount of royalty fees than a regular AM/FM station.
If you want to help the internet radio broadcasting community, click here to learn how you can help.
Well my sixth, I think, semester started last week and for some reason I’m not too comfortable. First, I am not happy with my journalism class, and my schedule is all screwy. I guess that’s life, especially with a good station like mine to operate on the side.
Well, since early this year, we’ve been having bandwidth problems (aka internet problems). The internet has been going slower, causing buffering issues on the station to occur more often then usually, especially when someone else uses the internet on our network. We are currently looking for a seperate ISP line for the station so this won’t happen, mostly this will be replaced by the new Verizon FiOS service.
A word going around the internet in the business side of the web is “paywall.” Now, it seems that Jenthony Enterprises, Inc. wants to put one of its products behind this “paywall,” that product is Vidgle. In 2009, Vidgle had an estimated 20,000 viewers and 30,000 downloads.
