If I had to tell a sponsor / site owner a good reason why not too use DRM or Flash, and NOT allowing people do download any of their videos. What would that be?
I know we all have different views on this, so for now… in this thread only reasons they should allow it.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
After we dropped DRM, retention went up. In fact when we told the billing processor our retention number in Phoenix, he almost choked on his cocktail. Even when the lady at Netbilling was doing the walkthru after a few months of using NB, she basically thought the report was wrong. Not bragging, it’s just the truth. It really is a good business move.
However, with the h264 codec I am not so sure I would tell someone not to use Flash. With a good flash streaming server, you can get some amazing quality videos at a low bit rate dished out real fast on your site.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
there are huge problems with DRM, mostly related to consumers hating it or finding out after the fact that they need to remain a member to keep watching videos (then resenting it and never joining a DRM site again, or even charging back).
Flash, on the other hand, is a great streaming video format. When we started offering it, we got nothing but positive feedback. Of course, we also let members download the higher quality wmv video, but the flash lets them preview it online before doing that download.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
First of all DRM is broken… it simply doesn’t work on everyone’s computer.
Second… Members hate it.
Third… Reviewers hate it.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Isn’t it possible to issue a DRM license to legitimate members that never expires?
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
You can download flash movies with the latest Real Player…
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Yes. But there are issues when changing computers. Also, DRM tends not to keep up to date with the new versions of Windows Media Player.
I don’t get DRM at all. Those who want to steal your videos will, even if you have DRM. Chances are those that know how to hack it are the ones that will post your videos more and more especially if they feel empowered that they “cracked” something.
At the end of the day, it’s all about money. Your site will retain better if you drop DRM and let surfers download your videos.
I would bet that if a survey was done with 100 webmasters that used DRM and then dropped it, almost everyone would say it was the right move. While some webmasters may have had unprotected content in the past and now use DRM and love it, with the changing surfer landscape, I bet if they dropped it now, they would say, “WOW! If only I knew the results a year ago!”
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Ahh! That’s why I get a link on some videos to download even though the sites try and embed their videos and not let me download.
About the only good thing about Real Player.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Members hated DRM. Like it or not, surfers feel a sense of entitlement; DRM hampers their ability to collect and keep porn.
I’m also noticing in my stats that the rebilling model is waning. Dying is certainly the wrong word, but people just aren’t rebilling in droves like they used to. I think this is largely due to fact that there are so many large websites out there with hundreds of videos. Why continue rebilling with one site and get maybe 4-8 videos a month when you can move onto the next whale and get another 400 videos. DRM requires surfers rebill to continue watching them, and that just doesn’t seem to be what most surfers want to do.
Now I’m sure dozens of you are going to jump in here and say that you have hundreds and thousands of rebilling members. And I’m not denying that. But looking at the rebilling trends for the last five years, it’s definitely a declining trend with surfers.
Flash … people hate it, too. I think it goes back to the days of the 45 second opening show that so many websites used when Flash first appeared on the web. So people think Flash = I have to wait a long time for something to happen. I also hate Flash because you can’t even right click a video and get basic information about it, let alone save it.
People are savers. They like to collect pictures and videos. Preventing me from doing so makes me like your site even less, it doesn’t make me want to rebill forever.
One site that I like recently moved all of their pictures into a Flash component, so now I can’t collect pictures to blog or create galleries and freesites. So we both lose. They did send out a content set in what appears to be an webmaster update, but this site has also been notoriously inconsistent with these things in the past. If they don’t keep it up, I just won’t be able to promote them.
Michael
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;14295]
I’m also noticing in my stats that the rebilling model is waning. Dying is certainly the wrong word, but people just aren’t rebilling in droves like they used to.[/QUOTE]
Other webmasters I’ve talked to have seen a decline in re bills the last few months and attribute it to maxed out credit cards as the predominate decline reason has been NSF, much more then usual.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
[QUOTE=abostonboy;14275]Ahh! That’s why I get a link on some videos to download even though the sites try and embed their videos and not let me download.
About the only good thing about Real Player.[/QUOTE]
You can turn off the auto notification, then youd have to right click on it. Nifty feature for an X Tube generation I guess…
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
[QUOTE=dzinerbear;14295]Members hated DRM. Like it or not, surfers feel a sense of entitlement; DRM hampers their ability to collect and keep porn.
I’m also noticing in my stats that the rebilling model is waning. Dying is certainly the wrong word, but people just aren’t rebilling in droves like they used to. I think this is largely due to fact that there are so many large websites out there with hundreds of videos. Why continue rebilling with one [/QUOTE]
This has been going on for the past few years. In 1999, if you signed someone up to a site, you could almost count on 6 months as a minimum. Now, I feel there is a new type of surfer - the flip flopper.
I see a surfer join BM, take a month off, come back, take a month off, all the time.
If you read some of the surfer forums, the surfers will actually say they flip between a handful of sites. Comments like, When my SC membership expires I will join CF are very common.
Actual declines in rebills for us have not increased at all for us. I just feel the surfers are trying out new sites or their old standbys.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
I wouldn’t doubt that. With mortgage rates and gas prices as volatile as they have been a lot of people have probably been digging into their credit cards more than they should.
Michael
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
When we started offering more than videos and photos, our retention went up again.
On a side note, let me add this excerpt from an email I got this morning. (Every single members that cancels gets a letter asking why and how their experience could be improved)
“I WAS ON SITE FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
i DON’T CARE ABOUT ALL THE OTHER STUFF.
tHANKS.”
There is certainly a demand for high quality photography. We can run the logs and see that there are a large number of our members that never once play a video. They join for the live shows and the videos.
These added features are critical to a non-hardcore site like ours. I think they are just as important in the highly competitive twink markets. If you want folks to stay, you must give them good reason.
DRM in a members area is a very bad idea. But I can see what people use it. I spent close to 40 minutes on the phone today assisting a member that was having a problem. I finally figured out that his capture software to ‘snag’ our videos (which we embed for quality purposes) was causing a conflict with IE and causing the browser to crash. He believed that was our “overly strict security”. Such was not the case.
Even with a substantial loyalty discount, we have people that rejoin every other month. We are about to test a full access 30 non-recurring membership to see how that plays out (yes, it does cost extra).
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Maybe site will start disabling right click so surfers can’t save the pics?
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
[QUOTE=abostonboy;14304]
I see a surfer join BM, take a month off, come back, take a month off, all the time. [/QUOTE]
It makes sense when you think about it. Just join for a month every three or four months and you can see all videos that have been added in that time.
So how to we make sites that are compelling and make people want to stay a member? When I reviewed BlakeMason ages ago it had a quite lively forum and I’m sure there are some members who like to go on there and discuss the latest move as soon as it goes live. So that’s one way. I have a few other ideas too.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
Everyone should go and try out Flash Video on an old PC. You will be shocked by how badly it performs. Even not using the latest codec which requires yet more CPU power. Check the CPU usage in the task manager process list as you play a Flash video. This is why YouTube is still blowing up 320x240 size videos, encoded with the older codec, to a larger size using HTML code.
Although there are issues with auto-play and embedding Windows Media it gives a good viewing experience to the widest number of Windows users. Real Player is pretty good too. Not what everyone wants to hear. But true.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
i’ve seen sites that do that. i guess they don’t want to risk ex-members saving their watermarked pics that might make them come back to the site and rejoin 
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
I don’t know??? Maybe, but if a member joins one DRM site where it does not have that feature then they will be tainted and avoid joining any future sites using DRM…or at least that’s what I think.
Re: Best reason why to NOT use DRM or Flash?
yes, or at least i know it used to be. i reviewed a couple sites that have drm that lasts a lifetime. the possible catch is that it may still has to “phone home”, so that means if the drm site is down, the vids won’t play - and also mac users still can’t play 'em.