Filed under: linkedin

UK Major Social Site Charging For Basic Services: A New Trend?

In December I began receiving emails from networking sites promoting services at bargain rates: LinkedIn promoted 50% off savings if I'd pay for some premium package a year in advance. Execunet had a major percentage off for a year's pre-payment. Ecademy promised outstanding benefits as a BlackStar for a bargain rate of under $50/month - be sure to beat the $80+ monthly cost starting in January!money, money, money, money!

I ignored all these since there's no direct benefit I can establish...given the plethora of freely-available tools and social networking sites available.

Surprise!  Upon returning for an infrequent visit to Ecademy to tune up my profile, I was amazed.  They're real serious about charging for not just BlackStar, but now you must pay up to do almost anything:  They've disabled status updates, tweets, and just about everything interactive.... even responding to a message??.... in order to generate more... revenue???  Really?  Either pay up about $15/month for "PowerNetworker" or..??

I wonder what they based this decision on, don't you? Their reach is not very international and it's still populated by primarily UK denizens with some European business people.  I have met some delightful people through Ecademy, but I've also run into them on other networking sites.

Any business tries to dominate their market, serve the market, and make money. How is Ecademy going to dominate their market by charging for basics?

What do you think? Can they pull this off?