Pro Pricing Discussion and recommendations

[TrunkzJr]

Originally Posted by mogulus

A message from Max Haot - Mogulus CEO:

Dear Mogulus Producers, We have been reviewing all the pricing comments which were posted on this thread over the past few days. We appreciate your feedback and have some ideas we would like to discuss with you. Firstly we want to re-iterate that we are fully behind our Mogulus Free service and producers - our strategy is to develop both services. We also understand that Mogulus Pro is not affordable for all producers. We would like to discuss with the community plans to:

• Make Pro features available as paid add-ons to the Mogulus Free service (ad supported)
• Work on providing less intrusive advertising options.
• Offer discounted Pro plans for non-profits

I would also like to mention that if and when succeed at having our Mogulus Free advertising revenues generate a profit against our bandwidth charges (which we are constantly working with vendors to reduce), we intend to launch a profit sharing program with selected Mogulus Free producers.

Next step: If you are interested in participating in the discussion, please email your username and channel names to pricingdiscussion@mogulus.com. We will get back to you with more details on the feedback process and our ideas by Friday, December 19th 2008.

We look forward to working with you to find an attractive solution for Mogulus Free producers which also work for our business and vision.

Best Regards,
Max Haot
CEO Mogulus

Thank you for listening to us and I really hope we get something done. Personally myself, the 3 options of no ads, no watermark and removed from the mogulus search for $20 or under would be great, I hope we can talk about this.

[MStepelton]

Originally Posted by mogulus

A message from Max Haot - Mogulus CEO:

Dear Mogulus Producers, We have been reviewing all the pricing comments which were posted on this thread over the past few days. We appreciate your feedback and have some ideas we would like to discuss with you. Firstly we want to re-iterate that we are fully behind our Mogulus Free service and producers - our strategy is to develop both services. We also understand that Mogulus Pro is not affordable for all producers. We would like to discuss with the community plans to:

• Make Pro features available as paid add-ons to the Mogulus Free service (ad supported)
• Work on providing less intrusive advertising options.
• Offer discounted Pro plans for non-profits

I would also like to mention that if and when succeed at having our Mogulus Free advertising revenues generate a profit against our bandwidth charges (which we are constantly working with vendors to reduce), we intend to launch a profit sharing program with selected Mogulus Free producers.

Next step: If you are interested in participating in the discussion, please email your username and channel names to pricingdiscussion@mogulus.com. We will get back to you with more details on the feedback process and our ideas by Friday, December 19th 2008.

We look forward to working with you to find an attractive solution for Mogulus Free producers which also work for our business and vision.

Best Regards,
Max Haot
CEO Mogulus

Well Max, it seems that hind sight is indeed 20/20. So let me get this straight. Now that you annouced the unpopular Pro plan and are starting to bleed users, NOW your going to review the ideas that were given to you long before the Pro announcement? Sorry Max but closeing the barn door AFTER the animals have gotten out isn't going to help.
You can dangle all the carrots you want at this point. Your view of free users and how your going to treat them was made VERY Clear. Come On Max ! My channel ( radio ) useing only a 196Kbps stream and only haveing three listeners and only durring the day according to your estimator would have used ALL it's allocated bandwidth for a free channel in the first five days of Dec. !!!! This is not free, it useless !

Bandwidth costs ?????? Well Gee Max, maybe if you close down ALL the channels that are nothing but outright copyright infringment and also seem to have the most viewer minutes you wouldn't have the bandwidth costs you have !
EXAMPLES: http://www.mogulus.com/guide/search?...rch_tag=disney
PLease note the 6 Million viewer minutes of JUST THE FIRST listed channel ! And this is just ONE subject. YOU are the ones allowing this bandwidth waste and in turn allowing your costs to get out of hand.

[pdxjoe]

I'd like to review my math with everyone and see if it is correct. It would be nice to see the plan list a per user/per minute @ XXX kbps. But alas, let's see if I figured it out.

Facts: $1.50 per gig of transfer / encoding @ 500k

*Excess bandwidth Costs*
I believe a 500k stream will require 3.75 MBpm (Megabyte per minute)

1 Gigabyte divided by 3.75 MB equals 273 viewing minutes per Gigabyte of transfer.

$1.50 / 273 minutes = 1/2 cent ($0.005) per viewer per minute of excess cost. (30 cents per hour)

Is this correct?


*1st 25 GB Costs*
The first 25 Gigabytes for $350 provide you with 6,826 of viewer minutes @ 500k?

This would indicate a cost of $14 dollars per Gigabyte (if you used it all) [$350 / 25 Gig]

This would also indicate a cost of 5 cents per viewer minute (@500k). [$14 / 273]

Please let me know if my math is off or if I didn't get all the steps right.

Thank you,

Joe

[mopedtv]

Hello all,

It seems like many of the people here are not too happy with the recent Pro1 and Pro10 options. i must admit that neither of these are catered to what we do either. So instead of just being negative about it lets try and do some good as well.

So what would it take from mogulus to keep you as a pro customer? Try to keep your prices reasonable when forming your perfect package.

I run 3 channels.

/nptv which is a professional medical show where we have doctors from all over the world come on and discuss issues in both interview and panel discussion style. Our goal is to be interactive with the general public, educate them and allow them to ask questions via the chat. we NEED pro for this channel.

/lips which is a live internet video promotion service that was designed to allow Bands to have concerts for their fans, interact on a personal level, and give fans a chance to ask questions and answer trivia. we SHOULD have pro for this.

/mopedtv is just my own project. i go to Moped rallies and broadcast live so that people from across the world who could not make it will get a chance to see what its like. i take the broadcast mobile on rides as well as races and events. i do NOT need pro for this.

So i am just one person and i have 3 very different needs from mogulus. Here is what i would like to see.

for /nptv
Willing to pay anywhere from $400 - $900/mo in exchange for the following things.
*5 gigs of storage (we do not use mogulus on demand. we host our own archived content)
*25 gigs of broadcast UPLOAD (cap should be on how much content you can broadcast)
*unlimited VIEWER BANDWIDTH (come on guys we shouldn't be punished for attracting viewers)
*More overlay graphics or the ability to upload our own
*ability to stream at a total of 800kps not 700. 800kps (650 video 96 audio) is the best bang for the buck in our opinion.
*ability to prevent certain ads from showing (we do not mind ads as long as they are for iphones and tv's and such. but having ads for sexual enhancers or sweatshop made impotent infomercial vitamins on a professional medical show is a big no no)
we do not need lots of storage, white label player, HD streaming since most people cant download this fast and there is no way to upload that fast mobily, 16;9 or privacy options.

for /lips
willing to pay around 100$ a month tops
*ability to stream higher than 500kps, 800kps would be ideal
*unlimited viewer bandwidth
*16:9 broadcasting
*adjust the SLA so that mogulus can show the content as much as they want and use it in promotion but they do NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELL IT.
ads are totally fine as long as we can provide a quality viewing experience for the audience to compensate for the annoyance of ads. 500kps sounds and looks like crap from a concert.

for /mopedtv
willing to pay a max of $50 a month
*unlimited viewer bandwidth
*better chat room controls
*ability to stream at higher than 500kps, 800kps would be ideal
you can use all the ads you want.

anyway, this is my ideal situation. i look forward to participating in the discussion dec 19th about the future of mogulus and really hope i see some changes along these lines.

[mopedtv]

There were a few of these tossed around in the pricing thread but were mostly drowned out by complaints i heard a few good ones and here are some of my own. please post if you have any other ones.

Get rid of your channels with illegal content. other than your politcal event broadcasts these are easily your most viewed channels. you have hundreds and thousands of people watching channels with pirated content. disney movies, blockbuster movies, unreleased fan subbed japanese anime, soccer games, foreign channels not available in the US and many more. first of all this is illegal and eventually these companies WILL come after you. it might not be today or tomorrow but it will be soon. second these are the largest bandwidth hogs you guys have. i realize that pro pricing is designed to help keep your free channels running but we do not want our $$ being used to support illegal content that might eventually shut mogulus down. thirdly these popular channels are the first thing that anyone see's when they come to mogulus.com. they dont see TDL or Pop17 or our channels unless they have specifically been put in the center slot by one of you. it hurts our potential "stumble upon" traffic.

Clean up spam channels. you have like 30 channels made by "jacks hangover relief" www.getyourjack.com all they do is loop unrelated youtube content in an attempt to send traffic to their "supplement" which is nothing more than caffeine and aspirin. there are many many channels like this that are just totally wasting storage and broadcast bandwidth. they are also mis categorized across the board. they also watch their own channel in 20 tabs on a loop for days in order to increase their view count. Do not let people take advantage of you guys you can delete channels far faster than spammers can create them.

get a whole different advertising model. come on, video overlay google adsense makes NO money. hardly anyone clicks on these and when they do, they are usually on accident trying to close the window. pre-roll and post-roll video/flash advertisements are where the real money is at. while people are waiting to "tune in" to a channel it would not be hard to throw a 15 second flash advertisement over the player. this is much more effective and would make you more money. i would also suggest ads along the lines of youtube and pandora. they have very attractive pillar and tile ads that are much more effective. also, when people come to www.mogulus.com and the grid loads. the first thing that plays could be a commercial, this could be skipped if the user clicks on a channel tile but it would at least be guaranteed viewer ship on that ad.

servers! i would suggest get your own servers but i am going to assume you guys have already looked in to this and are trying your best. please try harder!

i will post more later when i think of them but i hope that gets a discussion going for now!

Edit: sorry ben. i made these as separate threads to try and make them positive discussions instead of just complaints on the price like this thread right now. dont mean to make your job harder =(

[Bowser]

Keep up with all the posts after the untimely announcment and uproar over Mogulus Pro, I want to add a few comments?
I have to agree with the bandwidth waste on Mogulus. I realize it is an outlet for under funded producers and people with some great ideas on programming. I have found channels using up bandwidth they want me to pay for that are truely junk. If someone wants to play games via internet video, then get their own channel and play. Don't use up costly bandwidth just to promote an ego. You may think me heartless and crass? Well, I have 40 years experience in the Television Broadcast Business and find the Mogulus concept timely and exciting. I would love to use it for some important broadcasting. However, watching now for a few months the type of programming seems to be more self-serving than of value to others? Many communities have set up channels to provide information and important content, others have become absolutly mindless. Enough, Mogulus will either look deeply into their project and make changes ie: Format the channels in better catagories, sort the actual from the mundane, provide a cost structure amiable to everyone. One way to do this is to make it all pay channels some more reasonable than others, and as one of the previous contributors has posted, viewer bandwidth should be eliminated. Thanks for listening.
W.C. Bowser
World Television Today
Global Internet Video
(All in production and waiting.)

[SaltwaterEdge]

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. When the two week grace period is up and the mass exodus begins, I will be very interested in what develops. Who's planning on doing what? Using another service? Sticking it out w/ the annoying pop up ad overlays? How long before someone comes out and offers the service in a way that promotes (and appropriately monetizes) the real value of what mogulus pre-pro had generated.

The real question I'm left with is with so many scenarios that would have worked AND preserved the real beauty of mogulus. Why did mogulus choose this one? Just seems strange. I'm not wanting something-for-nothing. I'd probably pay around $99/month for a mogulus service like I currently have (no overlay ads, unlimitted bandwith to viewers). I have to think that by either realizing the HUGE REVENUE that could be generated by implementing a simple 15 second commercial while the viewers were connecting (mentioned earlier in this thread) or by culling out bandwith used by the copyright infringing stations (also mentioned earlier) Mogulus could easily create an attractive and cost-effective pro program that would foster continued growth. It doesn't seem like rocket science. At the end of the day how valuable will Mogulus be w/o any stations displaying quality content?

There's a great idea here. I'm just left confused and not understanding what happened. I just hope logic prevails and somebody (be it mogulus or another entity) see's the value of this idea and makes it work. I want to see what the outcome is when everyday people are empowered with the tools to create quality media.

[TrunkzJr]

Originally Posted by mopedtv

they also watch their own channel in 20 tabs on a loop for days in order to increase their view count.

few things wrong with that. It eats a persons CPU resources, so their not gonna do much on their computer, its gonna heat up like crazy so eventually their video card, their ram, cpu or something is eventually gonna burn out depending on how long they do this. Also, if their ISP is not unlimited, they'll be offline within a day or 2 and have to wait a month to get their internet back, and if its not, their ISP will be not pleased and wonder why its being hit so hard.

Lastly, long live japanese anime ^_^

[Aqualung]

Protip:
Shoutcast allows you to stream videos for a cheaper price than Mogulus does.
You just need to pay let's say $33 per month for 100 viewers. You also need to cover server costs, but even throwing that into the mix leads to something nowhere near the $1,500-10,000 that Mogulus wants.

[UnknownAX]

Originally Posted by benhomer

We put considerable thought into setting the price for Mogulus Pro, and while we are continuing to evaluate the pricing options we do feel it is a reasonable and competitive offering when compared to the other professional live streaming services out there.

For producers who wish not to pay for Pro you are welcome to continue using Mogulus as a free platform supported by advertising, we welcome further discussion and may make other pricing options available in the future. Thank you for your support.

-Ben
Mogulus Support

So, how's that crack? Keeping you and your company coming up with ridiculous ideas? Good to hear.

I keep coming back here hoping that maybe someone's decided to reconsider the absolutely ludicrous pricing, but it's apparently not even being considered? That's silly.

And this e-mail I got earlier is just hilarious:

This is an automatic message from the Mogulus streaming servers:

The bitrate of the stream *** you are publishing on the channel *** is too high.

The maximum bitrate of your streams is 500 Kbps, but your stream is being published at 628 Kbps.

So, I can't even stream now unless I reduce my quality to piss-poor? Really?



Also:

Originally Posted by TrunkzJr

few things wrong with that. It eats a persons CPU resources, so their not gonna do much on their computer, its gonna heat up like crazy so eventually their video card, their ram, cpu or something is eventually gonna burn out depending on how long they do this. Also, if their ISP is not unlimited, they'll be offline within a day or 2 and have to wait a month to get their internet back, and if its not, their ISP will be not pleased and wonder why its being hit so hard.

Lastly, long live japanese anime ^_^

You're actually a bit wrong here. It'll eat their CPU and other resources, but a proper computer is cooled with fans (or water cooling). If parts die just because of Flash eating up lots of resources, something is seriously wrong with your computer. Secondly, most ISPs don't offer speeds fast enough to watch that many live streams at once. They'd all just lag, and while it'd certainly eat up lots of bandwidth, I imagine it would take a longer period before one would run out of it. Though, any good ISP these days provides unlimited bandwidth, but in some backwards countries (like Australia) they still get away with capping the 'net.