Can you pay 500 bucks a month to have access to well curated content and information about your daily interests. Say a group that discusses news or politics or one that sends you link to new music as they’re released to your WhatsApp. Lagos people always like to know the traffic situation before heading out and this could be another use case.
The real advantage of this over email digests is that it’s a better option for information that is just breaking and the fact that you could ask questions and get real time answers from other people within the group may be appealing. No searching the web, no API. it also has an advantage over twitter in that all your info isn’t shattered. All the info you need is sent one link at a time to your phone. If the group admins are always sending people to a particular website, they could strike a deal with the website owners for the referral and make more money if that won’t be a stretch
As much as I dislike WhatsApp, I’ve come to accept it because that’s the default way of sending text messages nowadays.
Most of us are already in a group on WhatsApp whether it was made for family or friends so it’s something we are all familiar with. I have no plans or interest in starting a service like this anytime soon but I’d like to know what you guys think.
Content is a commodity. Everybody is producing it. Everyday. What’s valuable is curated content. A group of people discussing news or politics is not curated content. That’s just a village market square. In fact what you’ve described, I have a few groups chatting all day, which I don’t check. They’re smart people in those groups but would anyone pay for random chat? The day one can leave a WhatApps group anonymously…
Truth be told, people will pay for relevant content that tells them what they should know, but they don’t. But advertising works as well you know. Instead of charging your readers/users. We don’t enough valuable African content. So for anyone who’s remotely interested in curating content (and not charging users):
Provide value first
Never spam your users/readers
Don’t think of advertising until you nail no.1
If you advertise - regard it as content to be curated as well
Actually a lot of people will pay. I pay for subscriptions and the outlets advertise. So all join!
LOL. @wkyo Trust me, I hate the idea I just posted and I wouldn’t pay a dime for it. But I also realise I’m not the average guy on the street and the fact that you or me wouldn’t pay doesn’t mean that guy at ojota wouldn’t.
@gabe news and politics are just two use cases, i also mentioned traffic monitoring and nigerian music news and downloads. Maybe these examples are not what you are interested in or can relate to but I guess there’s some real time info you wouldn’t mind paying for if you are sure to get it easily without stress.
@PapaOlabode I hate WhatsApp groups as much as you do and I have exited quite a lot of them whether anonymously or not. I can’t stand notifications on my phone, it’s like a phobia so i avoid being in them as much as I can. Maybe the idea should be that you don’t necessarily have to be in a group, as long as your info reaches you on WhatsApp, and WhatsApp because I’m assuming people check messages on that app more than they check their emails.
Overall, I want us to relate this to the average joe. There are quite a lot of average joes and that represents a market.
EDIT: I made a search and came across this now . This doesn’t sound so ridiculous anymore.
“People in Brazil are paying $3 a month to join WhatsApp groups”
Just read the Meduim post and it does support your theory. Although the examples saying people are paying for stuff like traffic updates, seem lame to me. I don’t know how Brazil works, so can’t decipher or judge the value they’re deriving.
In any case, like I’ve mentioned earlier curated content is valuable. If anyone can provide that value, then like any product or service, they can charge for it.
I personally wouldn’t pay for curated content on a Whatsapp group…but then you’ve already mentioned maybe it’s not targeting me.
Yes I can and will. Whatsapp is a communication medium like email is a communication medium, if you can create valuable content people will pay for it. The key is to not focus on the MEDIUM but rather the CONTENT.
I like how this snippet sounds so smart and pretends to be a product of deep thinking when it in fact fails to scratch the surface. By nature of Whatsapp groups, everybody is a creator. Short of instantly banning anyone who posts out of turn, I see no way you can value the curatedness of it.
Now, how many banned broadcasters or commentary runners can you stand before you eject yourself and demand a refund?
I will pay N500 to leave some email listservs and N500 to be on some email listservs. Email the medium is not the issue, neither is it Whatsapp, its the quality of the GROUP. But again we are all old enough to make our own decisions.
In the dark world of BBM group, folks pay as much N10,000 to join in on a group for hook-ups. Everybody there is certainly with a sexual interest, so you jump in and everything is ful-gazzy from there. Very private and in fact, you only know when a certain member discusses it with you privately. Hope you don’t stumble on your girlfriend there, or a close friend.
So if you are curating “high class” runs-girls, and rich boys with girl problem and money to burn, by all means, you have a market, and can charge N5,000 a month sef for membership for the guys. The girls will have to be free, you know the drill. The higher the charge, the higher the quality of guys and girls in the group. You might want to extend to housewives and husbands. Any how, just kill it how you want.
Like @ofilispeaks said: if it is list for conversation with high value folks of special interest say Sim Shagaya and co, boys will pay too. The only problem is, folks like that don’t have that time to spend all day with you.
For your curation, I can never pay for that. That’s what Twitter List is built for. I generally agree with everybody else. If you have no moral baggage or irreligious, go with runs girls closed group business, it works best for BBM.
the group doesn’t need to have 100 members like you’re imagining it could just be a group of twenty people you know.
Like @ofilispeaks suggested the admins may have rules which you should not violate. Yes, people might be able to post comments, but there could be stipulated times for that. Discussion times might be set as infrequent as once a week for two hours or anyhow the admin deems fit.
in all, if the content is very useful to and you think you’ll gain from that association, I bet you will abide by the rules. Content is the key thing anyway and the advantage of this is that WhatsApp doesn’t feel as distant as email, you feel more connected and also, you have the opportunity to relate with like minds real time.
I said all of that in my post and asked a question after. But you know, regurgitating what I said (and avoiding the question) is somehow expected to tell me something I don’t know.
Wrong thread. OP asked if you’d pay to be on a group with curated content, not a super exclusive (10 people, are you kidding?) celebrity AMA group. Also, pretty sure you’d be paying a lot more than 500 naira a month for your example.
Straying away from context to make a point doesn’t look good on anyone.
Straying away from context to make a point doesn’t look good on anyone.
I don’t think he strayed from the context. The crux of my discussion is if you’ll pay 500 bucks to join a group, I only gave examples that easily came to mind. obviously it’s not an exhaustive list of what can be done within the group. Other people have expanded on that and it’s great.
But you know, regurgitating what I said (and avoiding the question) is somehow expected to tell me something I don’t know.
i don’t pretend to know it all and if I had an answer for you, I would have made it known.
