[joe-frank-list] Re: make Joe's radio public

[Erik Shirokoff]

If you ask me, requiring that people subscribe in order to listen to the free samples is counter productive.  It may be a decent way to convince exiting fans that subscribing is a good idea, but it's likely to serve as a barrier to recruiting new fans.  One could make the case that the former is their goal at present, however they're bound to exhaust the pool of existing fans in time.

Perhaps I'm unusual, but when someone sends me a link to some site I've never heard of and it requires a free subscription to view even a sample of their content, I walk away.  Even with spam protection in the form of throw-away email addresses, it's usually just too much hassle to register for content before one has any idea whether it is worthwhile. 

If someone sent me to joefrank.com, and I had never heard his work, chances are I'd leave without registering.

On the other hand, if they had a couple of free streams available and easy to find from the front page, the casual visitor might stick around long enough fall for Joe's work.

But then, there certainly do seem to be a lot of web sites out there which require free subscriptions.  Can't imagine what they get out of it, except mailing lists stuffed with bogus addresses and the ability to force the 2% of us who usually surf without cookies to let them track our adverts. Hardly seems worth it to me.

- Erik


On Sat, Nov 06, 2004 at 04:56:20AM -0500, BILLMILOSZ at aol.com wrote:
> Well there are a number of free streams on the site now.  Five programs are 
> available to anyone for free -but you do have to sign up as a "free subscriber" 
> and then log in.  While this might be a little confusing to some, there ARE 5 
> programs available in full to act as an introduction.
> 
> Maybe the Joe Frank website people can make the free shows a little easier 
> for people to hear- it's just a little confusing on 
> http://joefrank.com/shows.html   where it says "In addition, we're currently uploading samples from every 
> Joe Frank radio program. They will be available to everyone FREE OF CHARGE and 
> should help you identify shows and choose which programs you wish to hear. 
> Sign up to be a subscriber and select the "Samples" subscription."  
> 
> - instead they could just put a link that says "SOME SHOWS AVAILABLE FREE - 
> CLICK HERE"  which then takes the visitor to a page where it explains, "if you 
> want the free sample shows you have to fill out the form", rather than lead 
> everyone to the SUBSCRIBE page and offer the "sample" subscription.  Some folks 
> aren't going to read the FAQ or understand that there is such a thing as a 
> "free subscription"  - it would be better to just tell visitors, "register- fill 
> out this form- and give yourself a username and you can hear the free stuff."  
> IMHO