Zendcasts Forum

I set my vote for the monthly payment. I thought at once that it maybe was a little expensive, but its probably because I'm a student and then every thing seems expensive:P

Well actually, paying $14/mo isn't that bad if its like a mounthly subscription, but when you need to pay it all at once its a little much for a student like me.
When I think about it $14/mo is not that bad, but it kinda depend on how much you need the resources.

Maybe my reaction came from my position that I maybe wouldn't want to pay that much because I develop ZF on the side of my studies.

I can't seem to be able to decide:P

But I would easily pay if it was like $8/mo, but may not be enough?

I don't know if I made any sense, but at least you got some of my thoughts:P

BTW, is it CAN$ or US$?

Last edited by harri (2009-12-02 20:59:40)

I personally wouldn't. I think the screen casts are a great service, but there are a ton of free resources out there that I would use if this was not freely available. That being said, I think that Jon goes above and beyond what the majority of knowledgeable ZF developers do, I'm sure most would agree. But I believe that the perceived value is not enough to warrant a subscription without significant additions. Have you approached companies for sponsorship? I could definitely see that working out better as a model (I could see tie ins with some of your video content if it's a company that has anything to do with ZF).

The other part is that the zend framework community in general is already small and quiet. I think it would take away value in that respect, unless you did some marketing or advertising. Just my observations though

I have experience with http://peepcode.com/. Their price is $9/video and screencasts are more professional than zendcasts.

For zendcasts $4 per video or make better content. Your screencasts are useful but not have proffesional education quality.

Straight up display ads will definitely cheapen the content, I was thinking more along the lines of advertising that adds value to the content. More like product placement than a commercial. Or screen casts that are even driven by the advertiser's product domain. That's where I was going when talking about video tie ins (I could imagine an Adobe sponsored Zend_Amf tutorial).

And the tiered approach makes a lot more sense than a 100% paid subscription model

I vote for per episode. I agree with Manuel, you should have some user input for your screencasts, if we are going to pay.
BTW, Doctrine screencasts got me a good kickstart. I was willing to try it sometime in the future, but you made it sooner than later.
Anyway, thank you very much for your effort, ZC rules.

Last edited by rpsimao (2009-12-13 21:34:54)

I would say that a monthly payment and a per-view payment is what is needed. Some prefer the monthly and some prefer to pay for just a single view.

I voted for a 14$/month. The problem today is that only a few ZendCasts are really instresting, I would be more intrested in ZendCasts that described more design patterns...with Zend Framework.

And if you were to introduce somekind of payment you need to increase the quality of the videos...technically speaking (Audio and Video quality).

I absolutely vote yes.  I think that the quality and content of these screencasts is definitely worth paying for, and if the revenue will make it possible for you to keep consistently producing these screencasts, then it's absolutely worth it. The question should not be if you should, but rather how much.  While I agree there's lots of free info out there, I honestly haven't found anything as useful as these zendcasts.

We all love getting stuff for free, but it takes time and effort to put this kind of resource up and keep it running, and I appreciate that.  So I would definitely vote yes and let those who decide it's worth it hang around. 

That's my 2c.

PS: I like your idea of having free content and premium content.  I think a lot of the older stuff should remain free.

Last edited by einsteinsboi (2010-01-24 05:25:50)

I'd be ok for paying, but the price level remains a problem, hard to resolve i presume, 10$ for a sreencast would be definitly out of price for me (i didn't read above if you talked about it already). A strategy based on monthly, yearly, six month period or x number of screen casts choice could be good, allowing people to adapt the money cost to they demand.

1 € for a screencast would be good, you've got a large audience, it could make some good benefits if all of us (your students :-) ) agree with that price level.
Once a screencast buyed, the number of views of it would not be limited, only the access to the resource would be priced, not the number of access.

The level of your audience is also , i presume, very different from one to another, and setting some level required tag on each screen cast would be appreciate if viewing casts is not free anymore, allowin users to choose depending on the level required.

A good point is that you are very clear through your explanations, making things easy to understand, even for not english based people, like me.

I hope you'll success in building this, free world is the greatest but we all have to make money... Your idea for pay per view is logical considering the success of your zend casts.

Bye :-)

I like zendcasts very much. You always make things very clear and the episodes are never too long or too short.

However, I think a pay wall could possibly (almost) kill this site. I have no idea what the average age of zendcasts visitors is, but I think a great deal of them are students. As a student, I would never pay this amount of money (and certainly not on a monthly basis). Particularly because most of the things explored on zendcasts are already done elsewhere on the net. The advantage of zendcasts is the nice screencast format, and of course the fact that all info is in one place (and not across many blogs).

Also, I would like to add that I thought zendcasts is based on the railscasts initiative. This would break the concept of this site.

Recently, I considered donating (haven't done it yet, though ). The last site layout featured a big donate button, did it not? Maybe you should promote donations more.

Advertising might help, but I don't really like that on websites...

Best option here is some kind of partnership I think. With whom? No idea...