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Q: Subscription / premium services online ( Answered 4 out of 5 stars,   0 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Subscription / premium services online
Category: Business and Money > eCommerce
Asked by: macaonghus-ga
List Price: $100.00
Posted: 03 Feb 2003 13:00 PST
Expires: 05 Mar 2003 13:00 PST
Question ID: 156849
Hello, 

I need a list of the premium/subscription online consumer services in
Germany. These are online services where the consumer pays a
subscription fee to access content/services. I need around 30.

These services can be of any type. For example, in the US they could
include content (CNN, ABC, consumer reports, Wall Street Journal
etc.), software (McAfee, CyberPatrol, etc.), games (Sony, NCSoft,
etc.) and others.

For each service I need to know if possible
- Name of service
- Description of the service
- Price
- Company name
- Number of subs
- Any points of interest

My cutoff date is 7 February, but earlier is better.

Thank you,

James
Answer  
Subject: Re: Subscription / premium services online
Answered By: j_philipp-ga on 04 Feb 2003 00:53 PST
Rated:4 out of 5 stars
 
Hello Macaonghus,

Here is a list of premium/subscription online consumer services in
Germany. Prices are listed in Euro (1 Euro equals about 1 US-Dollar).

----

Spiegel Online
http://www.spiegel.de

"Der Spiegel" is the most well-known weekly news magazine in Germany
(along with "stern") and this is one of the most popular German
websites. Great parts of the online content are free. The print
magazine is published on monday, but exclusive online previews -- like
the cover story -- are only available on a pay-per-article basis. They
appear earlier than the print version, on the weekend before.

The price for the cover story is currently 0,85 Euro. All other
articles are available for 0,40 Euro.

The company name is SPIEGEL ONLINE GmbH, of SPIEGELnet AG.

----

stern g+j pressedatenbank
http://pressedatenbank.stern.de

A huge searchable database, covering 2,5 million articles of print
publications such as stern, ZEIT, Financial Times Deutschland,
Handelsblatt, FAZ, and Süddeutscher Zeitung, back to 1951. Articles
are available as a webpage, as well as PDF-documents. The weekly
magazine stern, and the newspapers ZEIT and FAZ, are some of the
biggest in Germany.

Each search will cost 0,15 Euro (after tax), the article price for web
page display ranges from 1,48 - 2,67 Euro (depending on the
publication). The original document as PDF will cost from 1,28 - 1,51
Euro per page.

stern.de is published by stern.de GmbH. Gruner + Jahr is the
publishing house for the magazine.

----

Google Germany
://www.google.de

You can advertise with the German Google. Worldwide, Google is used
about 150 million times each day to search the web, and covers around
2 billion websites. Google.de is the German-language version of
Google.com, which can be restricted to search only the German web.
Available are "Premium Sponsorship" (the ads on top of the search
results) and "Google AdWords" (the ads to the right side).

The Premium Sponsorship starts at 5,000 Euro per campaign. Google
AdWords is on a Cost-per-Click basis, so the amount paid is variable;
opening an account costs 5 Euro.

The Google company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998.

----

Monster.de
http://www.monster.de/

A popular German job search engine. Most parts for job-seekers are
free, some are only available as premium product.

As employer seeking employees, one pays 800 Euro for 1 job-entry,
1,750 Euro for 2, and 2,400 Euro for 10. Presenting your company costs
1,600 Euro for 3 month, 3,000 Euro 6 months, and 5,000 Euro for 12
months.

The company is Monster.com.

----

Ultima Online Deutschland
http://www.uod.de/

You can buy the software package with registration key online at
Sinclair-Software, then subscribe to the monthly service of taking
part in this online Role-Playing-Game world.

A 90-days "offline" extension packs costs 189,99 Euro.

Ultima Online is copyrighted to Electronic Arts Inc.

----

Bild Online
http://www.bild.de

Bild is the German daily newspaper with the largest readership. This
website includes a VIP-membership subscription service. One can see
additional content, get partner products for a cheaper price, have an
email-account, and more.

The subscription fee for this service is 5 Euro/month for a minimum of
6 months, or 3,75 Euro/month for a minimum of 12 months.

The service is provided by the Bild.T-Online.de AG & Co. KG company.

----

iBusiness
http://www.ibusiness.de

A German internet business publication. Premium access includes
articles restricted to the public.

Costs for this service are 250 Euro per year.

This page is published by the HighText Verlag.

----

Stiftung Warentest Online
http://www.warentest.de

This is the most well-known German product-testing publication.
(Reviewed products will later display good ratings on the package.)
Parts of the site are free, some articles are not.

An article can be purchased for 1 Euro.

The site is by the STIFTUNG WARENTEST group.

----

Amazon.de
http://www.amazon.de

At the German Amazon, one can send gift certificates.

The amount is variable.

The company is Amazon.com, Inc.

----

WEB.DE FreeMail
http://www.web.de

This is a free email service, and one of the most popular in Germany.
But if you want the advanced spam protection, you have to join the
WEB.DE Club.

30 days membership for the WEB.DE Club costs 1 Euro. 6 months are
available for 5 Euro/month.

This is a service by WEB.DE AG.

----

Cosmodate
http://www.cosmodate.de

A search service to find a partner. Premium members can access all
content, like profiles, video profiles, voice profiles, and they can
contact other members.

The price ranges from 19,95 Euro for a single month to 89,95 Euro for
one year.

The page is published by inlifemedia.

----

Business-Wissen.de
http://www.business-wissen.de

German website with news and online workshops. Premium members can
access all content, like special downloads, or the archive.

Membership costs 49 Euro/year.

The site is by b-wise gmbh.

----

Akademie.de
http://www.akademie.de

A German university online-courses site. Membership service covers
unrestricted access to online courses, moderated newsgroups, and a
user-maintained web page.

The monthly membership fee is 15 Euro.

The service is by akademie.de asp GmbH.

----

Contacting.de
http://www.contacting.de

Another site for people looking for a partner. Members get full access
to all services, like sending messages to other members. They can also
have an online photo album for themselves.

Membership access can be purchased for 6 Euro/month.

The site is by contacting.de e.K.

----

Singlepage.de
http://www.singlepage.de

Yet another single search engine. Registration is free for 5 days;
after that period, it will cost something. Women don't have to pay at
all.

Basic membership has a one-time cost of 3,99 Euro. Premium membership
costs 7,90 Euro per month.

The company name is Singlepage.de.

----

Schlund.de
http://www.schlund.de

You can have your own web site and email with this hosting package. It
is one of the most popular in Germany. I assume you're not primarily
looking for web hosting packages, but I include this as additional
reference.

The price is from 9 - 99 Euro per month for a web hosting package.

The company is Schlund + Partner.

----

uptrax
http://www.uptrax.de

This music site features premium membership package. Members have
unlimited uploads and downloads, as well as other premium features
available. Members also get Uptrax articles cheaper.

The price is 5,80 Euro per year.

The company is uptrax gmbh.

----

pdfzone.de
http://pdfzone.hightext.de

Members can download a PDF-version of a book by Pearson Education
every month.

The yearly price for this service is 49,60 Euro.

Copyrighted to pdfzone.de, partly to HighText Verlag.

----

Brigitte.de
http://www.brigitte.de

This is a German magazine for women. The site features a "lovechannel"
to get to know other people and find a partner. Premium members can
use the full search capabilities, and also contact others using
private messages.

The price ranges from 15,90 Euro for 3 months to 49,90 for 12 months.

The site is copyrighted to Brigitte.de and part of the Gruner + Jahr
publishing house.

----


I hope this helps!


Search strategy:
Being from Germany, I knew many of the sites.

Search terms:
bezahlinhalte im web
"kostenpflichtige inhalte" im web
premium mitgliedschaft
mitglied euro

Clarification of Answer by j_philipp-ga on 04 Feb 2003 22:42 PST
Hello Macaonghus,

Thank you for your rating!

I would like to add some information, as I was thinking with "subs"
you were referring to subsidiaries; your comment in another thread and
Robertskelton's answer made it clear to me you are looking for the
number of subscribers.

To locate information for the numbers of subscribers is either very
hard, or most often, the data is not available.
Still I would like to point you to the following German article, from
which I will translate parts:

Paid Content: Who's going to pay for it? (by Matthias Robben,
10/24/2002) [German]
http://www.ecin.de/state-of-the-art/paidcontent/

"When it comes to revealing subscription numbers, more often than not
publishing companies start to be very secretive. A likely reason is
that numbers are mostly far behind expectations. Like SpiegelNet [1],
where according to CEO Thomas Göbler the quantity of paid content
views is in the lower five-digit area. (...) He sees a rising tendency
in numbers, but leaves no doubt that paid advertisement is still the
site's main income.

In comparison to the Wall Street Journal [2], one big difference
between the two services becomes obvious; Spiegel Online (...) makes
users pay per article instead of relying on a pay per month basis.
However several studies conclude this approach is not reflecting the
basic user needs. When it comes to paid content online, German
Internet users prefer a monthly payment for unlimited access of a
site's content. 'If one pays for content online, one wants to make
extensive use of it without time pressure.' says Tristan Helmreich of
Emnid [3]. Most people reject the option to subscribe for partial
content only -- or follow an approach of micropayments, in which a
small amount of money will be paid for every article viewed.

In light of this it's surprising that Stiftung Warentest [4] is
successfully marketing its content using micropayments. Over 25,000
Euro per month are currently made with paid-content articles (...)"


I hope this helps some more.


Search terms:
nutzerzahlen paid content
bezahlinhalte im web 
"kostenpflichtige inhalte" im web
"spiegel online" nutzer bezahlen


Footnotes:

[1] SpiegelNet
http://www.spiegelnet.de

[2] Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com

[3] Emnid
http://www.emnid.de

[4] Stiftung Warentest
http://www.warentest.de
macaonghus-ga rated this answer:4 out of 5 stars
Very good answer. Fewer numbers and less detail, but greater speed,
than I expected. I am very satisfied.

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