Welcome!
I will not pay $29 to post public blogs on Active Rain and believe the charge will act as a strong disincentive for others as well. To me, the charge just moves Active Rain into the world of all those 'referral sites' or 'lead generators'(like HouseValues) which charge and deliver nothing. What confuses me is the following: 1. House Values loses more and more money each year it operates, then buys (into) Active Rain and acts to drive down its value - how does this all work out in the end; and 2. ActiveRain sues Move Inc. for breach of contract so, if ActiveRain is the plaintiff, why does it have to charge its members as part of a settlement with Move Inc. When you sue and then settle, you get something - not lose it - and Activerain's new policy to charge members seems to be something only a loser would have to do as a result of a settlement.
I thought Vikki presented her piece quite well. Some figures used, however, could be fleshed out a bit more. She said that "HG TV is in 93 million homes" - that is an impressive number. But, one could similarly state that "The Big Dipper is above 200 million homes each night". That doesn't mean that anything close to that number look at it, or even consider its existence. A far better number would be one which indicates how many people look at HG TV.
I thought the Charlie Young interview was quite good, particularly his analysis of how the Web/Internet has changed our ability to try new initiatives. In the old days, we could pick from display ads, inserts, radio and/or TV - all very expensive and all with little feedback in terms of the effectiveness of invested dollars. Today, the same things - in a far more flexible and appealing format - can be launched for a small capital investment, the feedback is tremendously more accurate, and we can push forward or pull back with little capital loss. This allows for both a far better return on investment as well as encouraging many more initiatives and innovations to marketing at many levels. Thanks. Marc McGee