Last week I went to see Radiohead play at Victoria Park, London, and travelled by train up from Cornwall. It’s been three years since I used this train, and the carriages have been renewed in the intervening period, replaced by what seem to be more comfortable, better thought out spaces.

Three and a half hours is a long time to be sat in one place, allowing you to take in details that you might otherwise miss, although you’d have to be asleep to miss the large, pink plastic ears attached to each seat. These struck me immediately as a brilliant idea. I don’t recall a handle of any description being in place on the old seats, which meant that as you took hold of the top of one when trying to stabilise yourself when walking down the aisle you were likely to grab hold of someone’s hair, or knock the back of their head, or some equally embarrassing situation. » » » »

You’ll see variations on this theme all over the internet. Radiohead have had the backing of a major label, have built up a considerable fan base as a consequence, and are leveraging this advantage when offering us the opportunity to name our own price when buying their new album. No one without this advantage could afford to market themselves in this way.

Let’s leave aside the fact that this process isn’t a new thing, and that the myspace phenomenon quite clearly contradicts this notion.

I think that what lies at the heart of this argument is the supposition that the old structure could miraculously transport a band / composer from their current unknown status to globally recognised status overnight. » » » »

If you’re confident that your software does what it says on the tin, why not charge a proper price for it ? The fact that you’re practically giving away your work and expecting people to cough up of their own volition is a certain indicator that what you’ve produced is of little use.

This is the implication of some of the comments that are made regarding the pricing structure of my web based time tracker.

Various people have suggested that if you try to sell a product too cheaply, propective buyers will assume that the price reflects the quality of the product. What’s missed is the fact that, although the basic rate is only £1.00 per month for unlimited use, this basic payment is required only to verify that an account is still active. The actual monthly payment made by any one user is defined by that user - the user is encouraged to assess the product’s value to them.

How do you assess a product’s value to you ? Well different products require different methods of assessment. In the case of adderuppa the process is pretty simple, as illustrated below. » » » »

This question is one of the first to crop up whenever I describe the pricing strategy for my simple web based task timer. Business people in particular are incredulous. Giving a service away for free is readily understandable, but trying to make money by encouraging users to pay whatever they like ? No, there must be an ulterior motive. » » » »

We have finally decided on what we are going to charge for adderuppa. The subscription code is not quite finished, and so for now it remains free of charge, but as of some time in the new year, we will be charging ….

£1.00 per month flat rate. The user defines a higher rate if they feel like it.

Today I downloaded Radiohead’s In Rainbows and paid nothing for it. Having bought their last few albums it was almost a certainty that I would buy a copy of this anyway, but because of their capacity for hit ‘n’ miss, doubt had crept in.

Flicking through the tracks it didn’t take long to decide to buy the deluxe vinyl version. Would I have paid anything if that physical set had not been available ? » » » »

Some time ago I read an interesting article by Robert Woodhead about the principal of allowing people to judge how much they considered a service was worth to them. I read the article at a time when we were wrestling with how much to charge for our hosted task timer, and it semed to make a lot of sense.

We are still wrestling with this problem. Most people consider the idea completely bonkers. Looking around at the many hosted applications currently on the market, particularly the dozens of project management tools suddenly coming online, most of whom charge a tiered fee according to functionality available, you’d be forgiven for agreeing.

We are not convinced that the concept is madness. » » » »