When I want to gain insight into a movie, I just type "Ebert [moviename]" into Google and get what I need. I couldn't imagine losing such ease of access to such a valued resource, so I'm more than willing to pay the Ebert Club fee, especially if it means that those who can't are still able to read all the site's material.

I didn't find the added content that you offered through the Ebert Club especially appealing. However, reading your reviews and journal enriches my life, so I'm happy to contribute $4.99 to enrich yours.

I think there needs to be another kind of movie rating system, an alternative to the four-star system. Don't get me wrong, the four-star rating system is great and makes so much sense to me.

But what about those movies that I know aren't THAT great but I enjoy immensely? Examples: "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and ESPECIALLY its sequel "Shock Treatment".

Then there are those bad-but-good horror movies I enjoy so much.

Just thoughts on my mind right now.

Mr. Ebert,

Although I signed up for the Ebert Club and offered my $4.99, perhaps you might want to peruse Steve Pavlina's website. He's a, well, motivational guy doesn't cut it as he doesn't resemble Tony Robbins AT ALL, but he is a prolific writer/blogger and his site, with no/limited ads grosses him tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Perhaps you could learn from him? Perhaps even employ him (?) as the parallels between your two styles of followers are immense.

http://www.stevepavlina.com/

(No affiliation at all.)

Makes perfect sense to use micropayments to pay for some preferred content without burdening users with an up-front premium -- such as the way we currently pay for HBO.

However, it makes me wonder, can we marry a micropayment revenue stream to the production of feature films and other big artistic endeavors? Sure, micropayments work for Danni Ashe, because her content requires less pre-production time, and she can respond to trends of preference and taste with another quick photo spread or lo-fi HandyCam shoot. Ditto bloggers and newspaper columnists, who hold up a mirror to current issues. But how can micropayments finance the big stuff? Will movie studios become increasingly micro-focused as they try to respond to payers' tastes? How will this influence the intersection of commerce and art?

Roger,

I hope this works, the last thing the Internet needs is content exclusively behind a firewall, because it will only die. I suspect that Value Added will eventually prove to be the model for profiting on the Internet. Too many sites seem to think that holding back all content is the way to money, and it might work in the short term, but in the long term it will fail. Letting nothing out for free means nobody new can get a taste of what you're selling.

Value Added also appeals to one of the more basic human instincts: the desire to feel special. Giving people something they know other's won't get feeds that instinct.

Best of Luck,
Russ

An interesting case study is that of web cartoonists. Many of them have ecked out quite lucrative careers through the Value-added model of websitery.

Great articles. I remember Danni's hard drive. More than a decade ago when I was running adult sites, it was a must visit for all adult webmasters.

But there are many sites that do make money. For example, Huffinfgton's Post. Even small time bloggers are making money from ads and promoting and selling affiliate products.

You need to understand what your audience needs and desires and give them those for a payment.

It is not true that nobody is making money from the Web. Ask the people who participate in the ebay eco system as power sellers, ask those Amazon sellers, they will all tell you that they earn full time income, may be not in millions.

I also make full time income from a few sites and two blogs I run.

You need an ad sales team to get advertisers to pay to reach the market you target. You absolutely should be attracting major studios and independents, as well as those businesses that would love to target your specific audience. You're not going to get it done charging viewers. You don't have that much appeal. But don't feel bad - The New York Times and CNN don't either. It's all in the advertiser base. You will need to broaden your brand and expand your presence to include other features about film and entertainment. Become THE source of good information and you can win.

Well, you did buy my album.....:)

I wonder if maybe the problem is that you're not getting a share of the ad revenue that the Sun Times is making off your website? Because I'm sure the Sun Times makes quite a bit from all the traffic that you generate.

Also, I think you're confusing "firewall" for "paywall." A firewall is a security measure used by computers (including your Mac) of regulating which network connections can be made to the computer, whereas a paywall is what the WSJ does to make sure only paying customers can see their content.

Ebert: You see how naive I am.

You write that "the web that we surf every day is not paying for itself, and we sure as hell aren't paying for it." Actually, we are -- see here:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/01/information_wan.php
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/02/information_wan_1.php

Roger, I've been a fan of yours since I was a teenager (not that long ago, admittedly, but long enough) and, other than the copy of I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie that I bought (and enjoyed very much) back then, I've gotten all of that enjoyment for free, through the TV show back in the 90s and then the various incarnations of your web presence ever since. I count myself among the many people who've been seriously moved not just by your passion for film over the years but by the way you've opened yourself, your struggles, your joys, and all of your experiences to us in this space over the past year or two. I don't know how much I'll use the value-added content, but I'm very happy to do what I can and throw $4.99 your way to compensate you for the work you've shared with all of us.

You could probably make more money with a simple tipjar on your site, from Paypal or Amazon. I'm sure many people value your reviews at more than $5 a year. With a tipjar, they can contribute, while still leaving your work freely available to the student in Mexico.

Worrying about new ways to make money? Now we know you aren't dying.

I'm in Muga's camp - I don't see that much value really to the extra content as it stands. But happy to chip in $5/yr to keep the machine working.

I was going to suggest that you put your reviews behind a firewall, but charge a low sum (say $5 yearly). This will work too, I guess.

The problem with digital media thus far is that those who try to charge for it want to charge close to the same amount as the physical media costs. The incremental costs of a digital book is virtually nothing. No printing costs, no shipping costs, no distributor or retail markups. Publishers should be able to sell a digital book for the the cost of the author's royalty, the cost of electronic distribution, plus a reasonable profit for themselves. Instead, they try to sell it for a dollar or two less than the paper copy.

Somewhat off topic: I saw your appearance on Oprah and actually got chills when you introduced your computer voice. It's not perfect, but it was recognizably your voice.

Really off topic: I don't understand your unwillingness to learn ASL. If both you and Chaz learned it, you could communicate easily with her, without needing a computer or making up private signals. Additionally, you could participate in conversations or even make public speeches anytime anyone fluent in ASL was present. The computer voice is great, but it's slower than ASL and you could be more spontaneous using sign. Not that it's really any of my business.

Predictions:

"Hits" and other Internet-related trackers will become a new currency, like military scrip. Better give it 25 years, though.

Internet currency will supersede regular money within 100 years. It will out-Euro the Euro.

Ultimately, currency of all type will become moribund. The Internet, as a pinpointer of world woes and solutions for such, will be the Great Equalizer. Not communism, not socialism, but more like a tame version of Frederik Pohl's Midas Plague.

All we have to do is share, go green, and be globally aware. Oh, and survive the next 100 years. The next 15 will be the tough ones.

Respectfully submitted,

Unpaid Blogger

This post is interesting because just last night as I was vacuuming my house, I was thinking about how I would actually PAY to read your blog. I like the idea of putting up a donate button or a "pay if you read over X amount of pages per month" plan. I've never commented on your blog before, but I read it often and find your words inspiring and I am often left thinking about your posts long after I have read them. Because I find such value in your words, I would not mind paying a little bit to support your work.

Mr. Ebert -

I am a college student who grew up in a film-heavy household with a father who was a Theater major (since Film wasn't an option at W&L in the 1970s). We watched movies every weekend, whether at home or in the movie theater. I grew up watching your show with Gene Siskel with my father when I was small, and it was fun to bond over and look forward to your reviews so we could determine what movies we were going to see next. My entire family was moved to tears by the Esquire story, and I have enjoyed following your website/journal. Yesterday your interview with Oprah was intense and personal for me as my Aunt has suffered from, and survived mouth cancer THREE times, and it made me realize how grateful I should be for my own health. I was more than happy to join the Ebert Club for $4.99, not for the features, but to be able to give something back to you. Break it down this way, all of the good movies you have reviewed I have seen, and at $5.00-9.00 a ticket for movies I may have seen if you hadn't said how "thumbs down" they were, makes even more sense to give back to you. You have saved me a lot of money, and you are an individual whose writing has been inspirational for quite some time.

Thank you,

Whitney

I do hope it works for you, but I'm afraid that (contrary to how it SHOULD have happened) the existence of the Web has actually cheapened the value of content, rather than increased it. If you're going to sell "additional content," it needs to be very intriguing, and needs to create some buzz or discussion that will interest outsiders in it. If anyone can do this, it's you.

On the strength of this faith, I'll sign up, and when good stuff comes along (as I'm sure it will), I'll be the first to promote it, both digitally and vocally.

Cheers, with much appreciation.
Jesse

You could go to the Public Broadcasting method of getting money from the site. Hold the occasional pledge drive and write about anything and everything. Give it all away, and use a little bit of guilt now and then for donations. If the writing is worth it, people will pay.

Jerry Pournelle (best known as a Sci Fi author and columnist from Byte magazine) runs his site that way, and seems to do okay. I read it for free for a couple of years and decided I should chip in some money. Lots of other do as well.

I'm thinking Roger needs to stick to reviewing movies ... anything else is above his (mental) paygrade!

Roger, for a good read on what is meant by "free", read Mark Cuban's blog (the owner of the Dallas Maverick's basketball team). You can google it.
He's written several articles on how "free" isn't really "free" at all in this internet age.
He's a terrible writer but there is a reason he is a billionaire.

I am now a member of the Ebert Club simply because I love your writing. It's honest and even though I don't agree--I appreciate it greatly. I can skip a cup of coffee at Starbucks if it means the content continues without the Sun going under. Value Added is a bonus.

Roger, for a good read on what is meant by "free", read Mark Cuban's blog (the owner of the Dallas Maverick's basketball team). You can google it.
He's written several articles on how "free" isn't really "free" at all in this internet age.
He's a terrible writer but there is a reason he is a billionaire.

Roger, for a good read on what is meant by "free", read Mark Cuban's blog (the owner of the Dallas Maverick's basketball team). You can google it.
He's written several articles on how "free" isn't really "free" at all in this internet age.
He's a terrible writer but there is a reason he is a billionaire.

I'm thinking Roger needs to stick to reviewing movies ... anything else is above his (mental) paygrade!

I was thinking of giving up bread anyway. Now I have a great excuse.

As I understand it, the most honest and profitable way to make money online (without resorting to pornography, gambling, or fake news), is through surveys. It is one of the most targeted forms of marketing, is profitable to you, the vendors and most importantly to the end users, because the products are tailor made for them and most marketers will part with substantial sums of money to ask questions of one of the most focused and significant demographics. If you don't have too many of them and if they're of the right kind, I think most people will be only to happy to fill them out for you.

Start by asking the users -

how many surveys would you be willing to answer per week 2, 3, or 6. Sunday is after all the day of rest (not for the wicked of course).

Indian Idiot (H.W.)

P.S. CereProc did a great job Roger. Chaz looked very happy, I was tearing up as I watched and listened. Congratulations.

I agree with Muga in that, on first glance, the Ebert Club doesn't appear to be anything too special, but I also accept that it's an infant idea that will develop more, and hell, I'll read anything you write, Roger. I'll be contributing next week (get paid then, money's tight at the moment) because I can't wait to see what you have in store for us, and come on, it's five bucks a year. Anyone who reads this blog (well, almost anyone) can probably swing that.

I think as long as the reviews and general content remain free, this will work. However, I'm sure most of your Ebert Club memberships will come from this blog/its commenters. I feel like us blog readers have already formed an Ebert Club of sorts, debating your reviews and entries and other commentors and whatnot. Now we're just putting a name on it, and helping you out in the process. I wish you the best of luck with this club and I'm excited to become a member!

One question: Do we actually get an invitation from The Ebert Club if we join, like the one above? If not, that's fine. I know paper costs are high. But that sure would be cool to have an Ebert Club card to carry around in my wallet. Wink wink.

Unforttunately, paying extra for anything on the internet would be considered a luxury for me at this time in my life. And any type of luxury is not in my budget.
So while I would miss reading Roger's reviews and essays, I would do without them. I understand that's what many sites will be doing in the next few years and I totally understand but -- no hard feelings -- count me out.

"Quick, Marty, get to the DeLorean! We have to go back and stop Al Gore from inventing the internet - the future of print journalism depends on it!"

You heard it here first, Universal. Get on it.

Danni & Nicholas Negroponte were my two earliest web heroes. I'd love to hear how she's doing since she sold her site to Penthouse & retired a few years ago. She has a very special place in my heart!

Mr. Ebert:

Great post about a very real problem. It will be very interesting to see how things go with the NY Times if/when they start charging for content.

One note about your use of the word "firewall": for IT geeks like myself, the word "firewall" has a specific meaning and it's not in line with your usage in this article. Generally, the word we use is "paywall" to describe what you're talking about here.

When I read the first sentence in this article where you used "firewall," it took me a minute to figure out what you were saying since I use the word in a different context.

That said, perhaps the fact that your site appeals to a more general audience ensures that this isn't a problem for most of your readers.

Thanks again for your excellent writing. It's truly worthy of financial support.

$4.99 to join the Ebert Club is the bargain of the year. I signed up as soon as the invitation came over Twitter. Roger, I hope you'll let us know how this experiment plays out. If even a fraction of your fans sign up, it should be wildly successful.

This column is used as a justification for the club and let it be known that I too would be willing to pay for it. However, you state at one point through your argument:

"To be sure, the Sun-Times pays me handsomely, although less handsomely since we all went through a 'belt-tightening,' so as not to lose our pants."

Having said that can one assume that when times 'turn around' the site would revert to being free again? I suspect not.

Best,

-A-

Generally speaking, I would be extremely wary of any club that would accept me as a member. However, in this case, I made an exception.

I was reading a book about "Psycho." Alfred Hitchcock made a tremendous deal with the studio. He would spend less than $800,000, use people from his TV show to keep costs down, and the studio would pay for everything. He said the only movies that had made money recently were low-budget horror.

TIMESONLINE: “The Bates motel” has entered the vernacular as a tag for any menacing, down-at-heel Victorian structure. But did the film itself really exert any influence, beyond making a generation of American women afraid to take showers? In those days, ruled by the puritanical Production Code, husbands and wives slept in separate beds and “lustful kissing” was taboo, as were nudity, profanity, drug use, venereal disease, homosexuality, childbirth, obscenity, adultery, and on and on. ... Hitchcock owned 60% of the movie, and pushed for a wide release. America was taunted by the trailer, which asked, “Can you stand to see this?”

Reply to: Her webmaster could tell when Saudi men got home from work, because the hit count spiked.

That's the answer. Do you have enough clout to negotiate a deal where you can retain partial ownership of the finished movie? If you approach a studio with a financing partner, yes.

Titanic was based on a true story. Psycho wasn't. That's how you do it today. That's why I'm waiting to find out how Major Hasan's court-martial turns out. That's the "inciting incident" that will leap-frog the right movie over "Psycho" in the record books.

I come here as a long-time reader and viewer, having just read the Esquire piece. I am also a small business owner with a somewhat “monetized” website of my own.

First, I am still floored by the Esquire interview. Chris Jones did an admirable job of capturing your “voice” on which I have relied for nearly a lifetime for balanced, intelligent movie critiques. Your quote, “I was perfectly content before I was born,” is perhaps one of the most resonant views on the afterlife I have encountered.

So, thank you for your words of reason and sanity, and the intelligent observations of the story-making of others. Your iconic voice is a part of the landscape of my cultural history. I am gratified to know you have gotten it back in such a lovely symphony of technology in the service of humanity.

Second, about this entry, I wish you the best of luck, but I will be surprised if you have the kind of response for which you hope. As a writer, I depend on copyright laws to protect my IP, and I feel that some things will always be worth buying. However, the reality of the internet and the ever-increasing demand for access to instant and unlimited information does and will continue to drive the cost of that information down, along with its perceived value. Profit from content for content’s sake, as opposed to books, software, and gaming, is rare, as there is usually a free option (even to the lovely Mrs. Manzari) available to those who look.

You didn’t ask for business advice, so I’ll stop rambling. I mostly wanted to say thank you. You have enhanced my enjoyment of movies for years, even of those we both hated.

Best regards to you and your family.

Lee Moon

p.s. If I’d had to pay to leave this note, you probably would have never seen it. I will, however, buy your books!

FYI, the term is "paywall", not firewall. A firewall is designed to prevent malicious network access. A paywall is designed to prevent free network access.

The main problem with the micro-payment concept for web browsing is that most people end up on any given page either via a link from somewhere else, or as a result of searching for something. No one is going to want to pay to see if the search engine was right, or to see if the forum link is Rick Roll or not.

Either you have an entire site compelling enough to earn money (through subscriptions, donations, merchandising, etc.), or you do not.

Everyone else has to depend on advertising, which is destined to eventually fail completely - most savvy users already block advertisements, and those that don't have only so much tolerance for the density and disruptiveness of ads.

All that said, $5 for an entire year is so ridiculously reasonable that it just might work.

I concur. For years, I've rushed to read your reviews after a movie in much the same way I'd want to deconstruct it with a friend over pizza. I wouldn't dream of giving that up and it's well past time I started paying for the privilege. Thomas Paine and all that.

Thanks very much for the chance to show my appreciation.

All the best,
-Graham

Heck yes, I think this will work out well for you. The price point is eminently reasonable, you're not making your entire site for pay, and, because you are well-known and write well, people will be willing to pay for the content you produce.

FWIW, I really like the micropayments idea and can't fathom why it hasn't taken off. Are people that unwilling to pay 2 bits per page they view?

Good post. I think it will work as long as the content offered is worth the payment. People are used to receiving their content for free on the web, but will pay for it if the content cannot be found anywhere else. That is one of the issues with newspapers, the content they provide can be usually be found elsewhere on the web for free. One interesting thing about Danni's industry is that the web revenue is in decline because of the "tube" sites providing free content.

One small correction/quibble. When a website requires payment to receive content, it is usually called a pay wall not a firewall.

Subscribed!

As in the above comments, it's not really about the extra benefits from the club, more that I greatly value your content and am happy to pay a micro-payment level transaction ($5/year) to support you and ensure access to it.

Every comment I read here seems to be written by a professional writer, so I feel very embarrassed with every word I write whenever I TRY to comment. Just this one I'm writing right now has been rewritten several times, and it's just horrible. I'm not trying to excuse myself (actually, I am), but I'm not a native English speaker, I'm from Chile and as you probably noticed I don't have a huge range of words.
See the point is that people of all ages and nationalities read your reviews and not all can pay. I just wanted to say that I appreciate what you do as much as the next guy who can pay 5 dollars.

Quería decir algo original y divertido en español pero no pude pensar en nada. Bueno, si estas leyendo o 1) buscaste en un traductor o 2) entiendes español. La broma solo funciona con el caso 1).

Sign me up. Actually, I'll do that myself. Only $5 to be on your list? I've paid more for subscriptions that were worth much less.

Caught your appearance on "Oprah" yesterday (and I don't normally watch Oprah). Loved the note that you had Chaz read. And the new voice sounds fantastic. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose something like that, then have the chance to get it back. Keep on keepin' on, sir.

If you have the ingenuity, charisma, and individuality of a person who appeals to wide audiences and is able to entertain and maintain a strong viewer ship, then Youtube might offer some possibilities. Youtube members that have enough views are able to sign up for a sponsorship that allows them to have a micro payment of every view on their page.

Michael Buckley, who hosts an online celebrity chat show on Youtube, said that profits generated on Youtube "greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company," and that anyone with a "$2,000 Canon camera, a $6 piece of fabric for a backdrop and a pair of work lights from Home Depot" can make money."

But even without the expensive camera, young kids like Fred are able to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of profit, especially with a million plus subscribers.

Dear Roger,

If I paid to read your interview in the Esquire (and I never buy magazines) I would certainly pay to read your site. But since the site is free right now, although annoyed, I have no choice but to put up with a poor quality of the search engine. I hope your IT guys will working to improve that.

Best of health to you!

I am not a twitter user and have severe reservations regarding the technology, but your site has been a teacher, a lighthouse and a benchmark for me for several years. I would be more than happy to support you in any of your endeavors.

Roger,
Several successful webcomics have gone to a value added approach - free comic with "extras" for subscribers. I like the idea and wish you much success!
-Joe

Are you concerned that the private discussion thread will have a large selection bias? Even the free blog tends to attract a high percentage of people inclined to agree with you, let alone when it's limited to people willing to pay you for content.

Don't worry, I'll doll out five bucks to tell you when you're wrong.

I'll pay whoever I feel deserves it. You do.

Interesting post, I hope your venture goes well. (I'll sign up....once my rent check clears.) Have you read Next, by Michael Lewis? If memory serves (I read this back in 2004), he talks to an aging rock band which staged a resurgence by doing something similar online, while all the competitors were getting killed by Napster.

My own theory is that the answer isn't micropayments or firewalls but a single, Internet-wide subscription service. Sign up once, get access to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and whatever little sites want to sign up as well.

The fee would be nominal. The service would work by enhancing the advertising revenues of its client sites, by providing detailed information about those who click on it. Salaries, ages, genders, site history, whatever the ad companies want. Ad revenue would skyrocket -- in the space where you could sell one ad before, you could sell five ads for the same price.

Creepy invasion of privacy? You bet. But not that much creepier than letting a company comb through your e-mails for ad placement, which is exactly what GMAIL does. So long as the subscription service is honest about what it's doing, and puts in some privacy safeguards, I bet a lot of people would be willing to give up some of their privacy for convenient web-surfing.

I'm not saying this idea thrills me -- I just can't imagine any other system that would work. And without some solution, I'm not sure the New York Timeses and the Guardians can survive--or the Huffington Posts and Drudge Reports which freeload off of them.

I joined right away and I feel I got it for a bargain. A chance to meet and greet with Roger Ebert for 5 bucks doesn't even need a second thought.
I would like to suggest that you might want to have an "Outguess Roger Ebert! Oscars 2010" for Ebert Club members only.It doesn't need to have a trip to Disney , I am sure that an autographed book would be a good prize.Frankly, I want to win the autographed book more than the trip to Disney and I am sure most of the people who are joining the club would agree with me.

I would also like to suggest that you have an option where people could pay more if they want but they have to pay a minimum of 4.99, I would have happily paid more :-).

Hey Ebert, I've been listening to and reading your reviews for decades and have made many decisions about purchasing a movie ticket based on your reviews and rented uncounted VHS tapes and DVD’s at your recommendation. I started reading your journal/blog a couple of years ago and have greatly enjoyed getting to know the other corners of your mind and sharing in your interests. When I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer two years ago and went through the standard surgery and treatments I was unaware of your diagnosis and treatment other than knowing you were no longer able to be on TV due to some cancer. Since then I’ve read stories about your experience with renewed interest and have appreciated your openness, honesty and bravery concerning your multiple surgeries and their end result. Thank you for all of that. I don’t often post on your blog but I expect I’ll be doing more in the future and I’ll also gladly pony up for the value added Ebert club!

Why do I suddenly feel like Ralphy sending off for my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring?

One of my favourite blogs, Language Log (a brilliant and perfectly professional-academic blog by MIT linguistics professors and researchers who nevertheless don't think discussing ads for Mars candy is beneath them) used to have a running gag about the PREMIUM CONTENT section of the site: strictly exclusive for readers of the website only, double your money back in case of the slightest dissatisfaction. Of course, the exclusive readership is whoever visits the site, the price is zero.

That said, as Paris is well worth a mass, so this site is well worth five dollars.

Can't wait for marketing-oriented people to contribute their own ideas for profit. Will we get to sponsor a review?

I'm an early adapter so expect me to sign up this weekend. Since I will be a member perhaps now I can convince my wife to now go to Ebertfest for the meet and greet.

Another possible source for a member's only value stream: periodic Democracy in the Dark online disicussions of streaming video where we can type "stop" to discuss the film with you and the other members, perhaps sponsored by Netflix.

Happy April Fool's Day.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I'm a journalist originally from that "I" state to the immediate left of yours and you've long been an inspiration, albeit a frustrating one, because we all knew we could never hope to be as good as you. I know millions follow you and send you notes but I thought you might possibly be amused/interested in my reply to a cousin-in-law of mine on FB in reaction to your appearance on Her Royal Oprahness. Your thoughts, writing, humanity and presence on the planet make things better for the rest of us. My note to my relative is below.

Patrick Beach
Austin, TX

I respectfully disagree that his illness changed much at all in him. Get his books "The Great Movies" and "Great Movies II." Wonderfully humane and perceptive writing; from his analysis you'll see new things in movies you thought you knew well enough you could have made them yourself. And I could happily lose days of my life reading his reviews, many of them going back decades. I think a lot of people first think of him and Siskel (Bert and Ernie, as someone very unkindly but amusingly referred to them) and give them, both unfairly, the rap for reducing criticism to yes or no. There's a lot more going on there. He's an unpretentious intellectual, a gracious man with a spine of steel and someone whose beliefs and convictions (and opinions, and biases) cannot, have not and will not be shaken. He works and he thinks and he lives and he knows he's lucky. And he writes better than I could ever hope to.

I completely understand why you are doing the Ebert Club, but I agree that the content seems a little weak to pay for unless you are doing so out of principal or charity. What about adding exclusive video content for members? Perhaps current video reviews utilizing your new-found voice or some archived footage of Siskel & Ebert? Maybe you could give members access to certain reviews a day or two early. Perhaps you could do more interviews with people in the industry and make those available to members only. I have always found conversations like the one you recently published with Leonardo Dicaprio captivating.

I pay for a VIP membership at a few other websites and one common philosophy seems to be to place more ads and pop-ups on the free site and then offer members an ad-free version. If you’re trying to avoid bonus content for paying customers this could be an option. The free site ads can be made prevalent enough to make people who have the money eager to pay for an ad-free version, but not so prevalent that they prevent people without the money from gaining access.

If all else fails you can always follow Ashe’s lead. I’m sure there is someone who would pay for those old home videos you and Chaz made.

Roger, $5 is all I have. What am I to do with the penny that remains? Ahhhh, I'll keep it in my pocket for next year's renewal.

Are you going to offer special Roger Ebert Merchandise not available to the general public? I'd like to order a set of THUMBS-UP gold earrings for Mother's Day.

I'm happy to chip in too, less because of the content enhancements you're offering than because I have fond memories of your show, and I appreciate reading your current reviews. Sure, I can get them for free, but $4.99 won't break me.

As for Danni Ashe, it may be a good thing that she made her money when she did. The porn industry was a pioneer in building profitable websites, as it has been in other media. (There's an interesting NPR show at http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2002/11/29/04 in which they discuss this.)

Recently however, even the porn industry has been struggling to make money on the web, as detailed here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/amytuteurmd/2009/01/26/porn_star_laments_were_going_down

The recession is part of the reason, but the bigger trend is the same thing that's affecting everyone else. The internet has made so much content available for free that it gets harder and harder (pun intended) to find customers who are willing to pay.

You have a popular website, so hopefully you can buck the trend, but unless you're actually selling merchandise like Amazon.com or eBay, making money on the web can be a challenge.

After hearing "Roger, Jr." on the web this week, I had an idea for a money-making proposition. Why not sell your voice? I assume you've heard of "Talk Like a Pirate Day." You could have a "Talk Like Roger Day" and let people pay to download individually-customized samples of your computer-generated voice for use in phone messages, birthday greetings, etc.

I know, it's probably a dumb idea. But how many other people do you know who actually have an electronic voice to sell?

I signed up for Ebert Club yesterday after watching Oprah. To me it seemed like a donation (like buying a box of Girl Scout cookies). I find your movie review archive and film recommendations very beneficial. I also appreciate the frankness of your journal entries, which you don't have to write. So I will pay to support your efforts. Think of it as a vote of confidence.

BTW, you might find this Prospect article interesting. http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/12/all-the-world-is-play/
It's about online gaming, but deals with the costs associated with it.

Tom Chatfield writes: "Unlike mainstream titles, social games producers do not charge up front, but rather generate the bulk of their revenues through many millions of tiny purchases. Everything from extra training options to faster advancement to fancy clothes for pets can be bought for a couple of dollars or less..."

In the case of this website, I would say additional perks for subscribers is a good start.

I would also recommend you take a look at the website for Chuck Palahniuk (author of "Fight Club".)
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/

He charges a fee for a premium membership which gets you access to a "Writers Workshop." I'm not a member so I couldn't tell you what goes on there. But I would imagine many of your readers are writers too. Maybe Ebert Club could offer writing advice, peer reviews, etc. (Just a thought.)

KEVIN BAYES

well, I can't answer for newspapers, but I have heard that successful webcomics like xkcd.com or questionablecontent or drmcninja actually can support themselves through their websites (they post 3 times a week). The bulk of it is from merchandise, I think, although talking with them directly might offer some more insight. XKCD is Russell Monroe, and he's extremely nice.

Here's hoping my co-readers realize this site is our very own George Bailey day after day.

I am entirely against this idea.

A year or two ago, I stumbled onto your site while invested in some unintelligent time-wasting activity, probably involving funny pictures of cats. Review by review, I became drawn into not only the world of cinema, but into language of art and ideas that manifests itself in your thoughtful prose. I soon became a fan of your blog (I had never before thought of blogs as a legitimate method of intelligent discussion), your column, and the critics you endorsed. I'm not trying to inflate your ego, but this site has given me a new perspective on cinema, culture, and ways to to procrastinate in an intellectually stimulating way.

Had you charged $4.95 per month for these reviews, I would never have given the site a second glance. Your site acts as a gateway to the world of cinema. For the freedom of information and the freedom of art, I ask that you rethink your "Ebert Club."

Also, I may be mistaken, but it appears that you are relatively well-off, by looks of your expansive book-laden apartment. Does your situation really justify throwing an expense at your loyal readers?

Ebert: The site remains completely free.

The club is an idea to, as we say, enhance the site and increase visits. Why do we need money? Because there are expenses here, and income doesn't cover them.

Besides, in the immortal words of David Mamet, "Everyone wants money. That's why they call it money."

This really is the million dollar question right now. It's an essential conversation to be having (whether with yourself, your staff or your readers). I'm grateful you're sharing the process here.

There are more problems than solutions right now with regards to how to monetize content. What I think is interesting is that most of us (who are not famous movie critics), are doing it the opposite of you..we're building our content and reputation online in the hopes that someday it will be of enough value that people will want to pay us for what we know. That takes building reputation, trust and a loyal readership/fan base. You already have those things, yet you find yourself in the same boat as the rest of us. Ironic, eh?

It tells me that maybe, just maybe, we're putting too much stock in the method and not enough in the medium.

Hello Roger,

I'm a big fan, and have been reading your reviews for some years. I certainly don't begrudge you the notion of charging for access to some of your work. However, I'd like to make some serious suggestions for ways to improve your website that may help you generate more advertising revenue.

# 1
---------------------
Cultivate more relevant advertising. At a glance, the banners just shown to me include:

- Jewel-Osco (I don't even know what that is!)
- the Museum of Science + Industry Chicago
- play Donkey Kong at playsushi.com (excuse me ?)
- Qwest High-Speed Internet

To paraphrase you: your advertising sucks! I don't guess that you selected these yourself, and I assume that you're using an industry standard ad aggregator. You can do better! I come to your site for movie reviews, so show me some movie trailers! I suppose there may be some conflict of interest for you, but I am sure there are creative ways around that.

Example #1: IMDb.com - I know you're well familiar with IMDb.com. They run movie adverts in a custom format, and you'd better believe that advertisers pay for the privilege. I don't imagine that your unique daily page views are quite in their ranks, but I expect that you receive pretty decent hits. I suspect that you would represent a double-edged sword to movie advertisers, but I am sure many of them would be happy to advertise to your readers.

Example #2: Penny-arcade.com - This is a gaming website where all the content is generated by two individuals. They have a following to match yours, I'm sure. They personally select every ad that appears on their site, and only advertise products that interest them. As a consumer, I would much rather see ads with your personal recommendation.

# 2
---------------------
Fix your damned search! Roger, the search tool on your site sucks! When I want to find a particular review, I go to Google and search for "Roger Ebert Movie Title". If there is such a review, it's always the first link shown. There's nothing stopping you from integrating Google search directly into your own site. Google even offers free tools for this now!

# 3
---------------------
Time for a redesign. I remember when this red-backgrounded design went up, and I'm sorry to say that it was already dated when your web guys implemented it. Further, industry statistics show that most users have at least a 1024x768 monitor now. You could make your site about 180 pixels wider without alienating any of your readership. Plenty enough room to expand that center column by 50%. Just think - room for your words to breathe!

#4
---------------------
Put up an optimized version of your site for mobile viewers. There's no reason why your site shouldn't look great on my iPhone, to more easily enable me to check your reviews before I walk into the multi-plex. This is a no-brainer.

To summarize: you're a first-class writer who is being served poorly by a second-rate website - and there's no good excuse for it, when many of these issues can be addressed by any sufficiently savvy web developer. This may sound like a harsh critique, but I wouldn't even have taken the time to write it if I didn't respect you enough to want to see you do better.

Five bucks? Tell you what - contact me, and I will donate my services to help you improve your website. Seriously. That's how much I enjoy your work.

Ivan Cockrum

Roger, I like you and like poster "Muga" I might well be willing to join the Club despite having little interest in the 'value added'.

HOWEVER! (he shouted)

There is a tone to your post here, an undercurrent, that I find troubling. You seem to be, whether you were conscious of it or not, complaining that the internet is essentially free for regular people. You seem to be lamenting that the poor corporations are giving away tons of content and not getting paid for it.

And to that I say - to hell with them. The internet, once you're on it, is free. It's the only free thing in this goddam country. Everything, even health care, is a huge ripoff. These massive corporate entities rob us at every turn, they wring every cent they can out of us. They are bastards. That they're taking it on the chin with the internet thing (and as to their motivations in 'giving it away', I think they thought they would make money - otherwise they wouldn't have done it - and, having seen that giving it away is unprofitable, they will go behind a pay wall - and people will simply go elsewhere, because the internet is FREE) is great. It's glorious, it's fantastic. I love it. Similarly, though with reservations (living artists who are not rich), I love internet piracy of music, movies, and anything else. We get a raw deal in this country, and the internet is about the only good news we've had in the last 60 years. Internet debt, national debt, it's always caused by the greed and stupidity of rich people and corporations. And when it comes time to correct it, it's always the regular people who are made to suffer. Well, to hell with Jim Bunning (by the way, you were being incredibly generous in ascribing his actions to concern about paying for the thing; he's really just a senile jackass), and to hell with paying for content online. I think people will join the Ebert Club, but I think if you investigated why, you'd find they did so because they liked you as a person and wanted to show their appreciation for all you've written, and for the community you've fostered here. In other words, it would not be for the added content. It would be a goodwill gesture. Which is obviously not a model any other huge company can afford to emulate, since they have only our (deserved) contempt. And even goodwill can only go so far - as you yourself suggest, putting your reviews behind a pay wall would send many people elsewhere for reviews. And alienate many others.

The internet is its own world. In many ways, for Americans, it's better and fairer than the real world. Anything that changes that, any instance of injustices from American daily life intruding in the American online life, will be met with hostility, in some cases - but in most cases with indifference. Because online there are no monopolies. Everything isn't for sale, and the good or service (or one equivalent) can surely be gotten someplace else for free.

If they stopped robbing us in real life, perhaps we'd be more amenable to paying for content online. But now, no.

It happens. My little sister dropped out of Harvard (to my parents' emotional and economic horror) to work at a startup that ended up being sold to a corporate meagacorp. The site is still popular to this day.

She returned to Harvard, so all was well. And now I get to brag about the website.

Incidentally, Roger, I was replying to the post on your main site, and did not read this blog post before posting here (I jumped over here since there's no obvious way to contact you on your main site).

After posting, I scrolled back up the page to read the blog post, and I see that you did touch a bit on film advertising. I agree that it us curious that the studio buys do not come to you. I still believe that there must be some opportunity for you here, however. Something to ponder...

Ivan Cockrum

I'll happily donate, just to get credit for my excellent surfing taste.

I have a signed copy of Dr. Dean Edell's book "Eat Drink and be Merry", because KGO radio, where I get the free (to me) podcasts of his daily show, offered the book for 100 bucks during their annual Leukemia Cure-a-thon.

P.S. Heard "Roger Jr." on Oprah. Fantastic! It was you. I used to dream about that sort of success when I worked in speech synthesis software back in the '80s.

As I have mentioned before, Roger--not that I expect you to remember, given the sheer weight of people posting here, much less ones you have met in person--I don't have a lot of money. The budget will, however, squeeze to $5 a year to support your site, and if it wouldn't, I would find a way.

You might also want to consider selling products such as T-shirts. Who among us would not proudly wear a Your Movie Sucks shirt? Or drink our morning beverage from a Great Movies mug?

i think anyone who makes above 100,000 dollars a year should have to pay 7 dollars for ebert club so that people making under 100,000 a year only have to pay 3. It's only fair...

I'm in, Roger. I'm in.

I am a native Chicagoan and I grew up watching At The Movies with you and Gene. I have seriously enjoyed "getting to know" you better through your blog and wish you the best. You inspire me, Roger.

My mother was a regular at Ricardo (among other places) in the 80s and 90s - I wonder if you know her?

Usually, I don't want to join any club that will have me. But I'm in! already paid my pittance and got my letter saying I'm in. It's a great idea. Who is your web guru and does he charge a million dollars? I need some web site help... some code issues...

"I'm not even thinking about the net's infrastructure. We help pay for that through our service providers. I'm thinking about the content. Who pays for that?For the most part, nobody does. "

I'd say that's what the real problem with the Internet is. For one, Internet service providers are a bunch of con men. As Slate's Farhad Manjoo recently pointed out, American Internet speed is much slower than it's industrialized counterparts. They have the ability to provide faster service, but they choose not to. The reason they get away with that is that the business of Internet service is an oligopoly like just about every other American business.

(I always ask right-wingers why can't I get Fios in my area? My cousin who lives two miles away has Fios, but the only DSL service in my area is Verizon DSL. Can't I even get Optimum DSL? Nope. What happened to the free market?)

And this taps in a big problem: The only people really making money off of the Internet are service providers. But those people provide access, not content. They're only enablers. Think about it, I pay Verizon X amount of dollars a month to come to your site. But I pay you nothing.

What if one day Internet service became like cable service? I pay Cablevision X amount of dollars to give me access to channels like HBO. HBO must be getting a cut of those profits, right?

It's about time service providers and content providers got together. What would Verizon do if all their subscribers called up one day complaining that they've been baned from YouTube and Google?

Hi Roger,

I recall, a few years back, Radiohead asking their fans to pay whatever they felt was fair for their new downloadable album. I also remember a sense of dignity that came with paying a fair price for a superior product. There is something psychologically fulfilling about supporting good art and journalism (a notion that is earnestly repeated ad nauseum during any public access station's funding drive). In this perspective, joining the Ebert Club seems fair and rewarding. At any rate, I was wondering whether you might be able to offer the opportunity for fans to purchase inscribed/signed copies of your books, perhaps as a benefit to joining the Ebert Club. Of course, I realize this might be too taxing on your time and energy. Just a thought.

I have a few quibbles with your otherwise usually well written entry. I believe the nomenclature you're after is "paywall", not firewall. To your credit, you were pretty close, after all, paywall is a portmanteau of pay and firewall. Firewall, while it also has its specific technical meaning, is more associated with repressive regimes bent on preventing their citizens free access to the very content you wonder people would pay for.

Danni Ashe is blessed with physical gifts and savvy, but also was the beneficiary of impeccable timing. The adult industry is actually in upheaval, their content frequently pirated across the internet. Often the content they paid to produce is helping someone who blatantly stole it, profit from it. Danni's fortune was made before the ease of finding free porn and before people were willing to make porn for free. And unless $10/month is considered a "micropayment", she did not make her fortune that way.

Nicholas Negroponte is one of those "visionaries" whose grand ideas are often the bugs for the windshield of reality. His vaunted One Laptop Per Child project is decidedly an international train wreck. And micropayments. Which is essentially a fancy internet savant way of saying, "tip jar", without the stigma of being seen as the guy on the "information superhighway" holding a cardboard sign. Or worse, Ira Glass pleading with you to fork some money over or he's gonna stop making fun of his boss on the radio. Removing the stigma is not such a bad thing. Evangelizing it like you've discovered a new natural law is.

But this $5 a year. Is that a "micropayment"? Why not just call it a "subscription" or "membership fee" or "the price of more of the awesomeness of Roger Ebert"? (And at $5 per annum, you're far cheaper than my public radio station. Sorry, Ira Glass.) To be blunt, micropayments in the Negroponte ideal are dead. Companies have come promising to live up to the ideal, and have mostly gone, failing to find the idea profitable. However, the improvements in the transaction infrastructure have made smaller payments less costly on a percentage basis, allowing for, yes smaller payments than before. These shifts take time, and can take years. Beware of technologists offering instant revolution.

The irony with respect to the micropayments fad is that one of the most well known and certainly most successful entities making money on the internet does it with very small payments. These payments are tied to simple text ads that users click on, for which an advertiser has committed to paying pennies for each click. In the manner of a blue whale sucking in massive volumes of water to filter out the tiny krill that provide it sustenance, they collect these pennies from a huge volume of internet traffic and spin it into profit.

"They", of course, are Google.

I'm not especially interested in the extra content, but I've always said your website was one of the ones I'd be willing to pay money to subscribe to. May as well put my money where my mouth is!

I study decision making, and the problem with micropayments isn't technical, it's psychological. People hate being nickeled-and-dimed and if they have to think about how much it's costing them each time they click on an article -- they just won't click. There are exceptions, but in general making one big payment is much less aversive than many small ones.

That's why most amusement parks no longer run on a ticket -- it's much less painful to pay $50 up front and then not think about it again than it is to fork over another $3 for every 30-second ride. I suspect it's one reason Netflix is currently dominating local video stores (depth of selection is of course another).

I think that subscriptions are ultimately the way big Internet sites are going to head. Perhaps sites will have micropayments for people who don't use the site regularly enough to subscribe to read individual articles. Perhaps instead they'll have a "10 free articles a month, after that subscribe" arrangements. But ultimately I think people would rather buy subscriptions to sites they use regularly than make micropayments for them.

Hey Roger,

I see a lot of whiners out there who have spent a lot of time writing dissertation-length posts on why they think intellectual ambrosia should be free of charge. I've read you for years, and I know that thoughts don't come cheap. It takes hours of work every day to turn out articles that challenge and ignite your readers.

It's economics. Everyone has thoughts. Yours are worth paying for.

I'm not especially interested in the extra content, but I've always said your website was one of the ones I'd be willing to pay money to subscribe to. May as well put my money where my mouth is!

I study decision making, and the problem with micropayments isn't technical, it's psychological. People hate being nickeled-and-dimed and if they have to think about how much it's costing them each time they click on an article -- they just won't click. There are exceptions, but in general making one big payment is much less aversive than many small ones.

That's why most amusement parks no longer run on a ticket -- it's much less painful to pay $50 up front and then not think about it again than it is to fork over another $3 for every 30-second ride. I suspect it's one reason Netflix is currently dominating local video stores (depth of selection is of course another).

I think that subscriptions are ultimately the way big Internet sites are going to head. Perhaps sites will have micropayments for people who don't use the site regularly enough to subscribe to read individual articles. Perhaps instead they'll have a "10 free articles a month, after that subscribe" arrangements. But ultimately I think people would rather buy subscriptions to sites they use regularly than make micropayments for them.

Hi Roger,
I think you should also consider posting more on your YouTube account and apply for the partner program: http://www.youtube.com/partners
I produce a comedy show for Canadian TV and we retain our online distribution rights so that we can monetize clips on YouTube. With your built-in audience you'd SURELY start making some decent change from the adsense. With your stature you'd likely even attract a sponsor for your channel. There is a lot of money down this road. Read up on it or email me any questions!

Also, I've wanted to ask you this for years but would you ever consider releasing proper hardcover encyclopedia-style books of ALL of your reviews?
Your early 90's Yearbooks of mine that my parents gave me are literally in shambles and it would be absolutely wonderful to have some classy packaging that would stand the test of time.

RE -

As the former web editor of the DePaul student newspaper, I understand the plight of finding some profit in the digital world. Indeed, I wondered (and do still now, as your hosting comes from the STNG) if this was a model birthed from your noodle, or the new boss.

Either way, kudos. Keeping the a glass of milk free is always the wise choice, even whilst offering the Cow for sale...

I don't know how much you follow music, but this takes a page right out of the Trent Reznor book.

In may of 2008, Reznor released "Ghosts". The first portion of the album was available for free; subsequent packages of greater interest were offered at a higher premium...it's a tactic which I feel is much less condescending to the fans (and the artist) than the radiohead model ("we're worth what you think we're worth")...and it's begun to catch on with a number of recording artists...

...And it is especially less pretense laden, than the selfish faux-utopian, "Ideas, art and news should be free" philosophy which seems to permeate the web these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Inch_Nails#Ghosts_I.E2.80.93IV_and_The_Slip_.282008.29

Anyway - again, Kudos - and best in life and ventures.

-NF210

Well Roger, I understand your point. And I think it's extremely gracious of you to test how your website would do with the Value Added style, instead of simply starting oblige people to pay for the contents. Nevertheless, there are completely worth the requesting price of admission, if not more. Your writing on the Internet is genius wherever you want to look at it.

Unfortunately, I'm going to pay for them, for one reason, and one reason only (alright, here it goes, urghhhhh!): I'm not thinking of visting your page (or Internet in general) in a long, long time. High school is starting for me and my studying obligations will morally force me to not thinking of visting the web for anything else that isin't study proposes. Also, even if I didin't had school up my ass, I doubt my parents would allow me to spend money on website, and my own would burn out quickly. You know how this is; when you're a teenager and you don't have a credit card, and you want to buy something by Pay-Pal, blah, blah, blah... It's the same problem I have with wanting to buy Thesis, the highly customizable theme for WordPress that costs either $87 or $164, depending on the option you'd prefer. Will my parents really let me to use their credit card's numbers and spend that much cash on a program that as neat as it looks, is for a blog that I don't use that much? (Althrough, that I make look better might inspire me to focus on write more, fater and better for it) And, besides, if I'm gonna vist your page, I definitly won't be writing on COAA.

But anyways, that's just the story of one little person. Anyone who has time to read you and actually does, should definitly try to pay the Added Value, especially the hadrcore commentators. Your entries, reviews, comments, tweets, are all worth the cost, and if it was for me, I would pay as much as you wanted to visit your pages every day. Reading you is like saving diamonds or gold ingots in the back of my brain.

Nevertheless, it's to study hard and make it to 11th grade (in your country). I will come back to my computer vice on winter's holidays and see if I can starting writing on my blog again, or, considerating it better to attempt to motivate myself to write in it, considering how unproductive I am. Lazy me. But unitl then, this is my last week of vacations and enjoying other critics POVs. For me the balcony closes March 7th, on the Oscars evening.

So you know what I have to say about paying for your page. Thanks again, for supporting me all the way from Chicago to Montevideo!

Cheers,
Agus

P.S: I'm writng you coincidentially an e-mail about my thoughts on your appeareance of Oprah. I still don't understand how I don't cry, maybe it's beacause I simply too damn happy for you to do so.

Just to say I joined the club so your site can stay free for everyone. (The added content was no incentive.) I gave money to Wikipedia for the same reason.

I hope you assign us member numbers. And since that's such a great suggestion and I'm the one who made it, can I have number two? If we could have a cool membership card like fan clubs of yore, that would be better than all that other value add (except for the ebertfest meet-and-greet).

If you make your five million bucks, give a million to the dudes giving you your voice back so they'll do an extra good job. Hearing you the other day was really terrific and I wish them and you all the success in the world with that.

I only have one question: When are elections for V.P. and Treasurer?

I agree with Edith about merchandising.

Blogs like Sleep Talkin' Man are making money for their owners without anybody having to show their tits, thanks to shirts, mugs, aprons... everything under the sun, really. How about a bobble-head (or bobble-thumb) doll, or ebertfest posters?

A lot of people will cough up the $4.99, if only to thank you for not showing us your tits, but cute, collectible, over-priced crap would be more effective.

I felt like sending out into the void why I paid to join the Ebert club.

I personally am not very interested in any of the perks. I don't read much of the journal because, frankly, my political beliefs are about 180 degrees from Mr. Ebert's. I have no intention to go to Illinois for a festival, mainly because Champaign is where the U of Illinois is and I still harbor a grudge against them for a 2005 March madness victory against my Arizona Wildcats.

The reason I paid is this: Whenever I see a movie-- new or old-- I think to myself, "What did Roger think?" Then I look it up to see.

If you ever find yourself asking this question, pony up.

Bit of a side bar, but the Daily Mail is not a fine paper in its own way. It's probably the worst large circulation paper in the world.

They've been leading a campaign against the "liberal" BBC Trust and were the key forced behind forcing popular radio personality (and now American movie star) Russel Brand to resign and the BBC suspending their most popular chat show host Jonathan Ross.

Beyond that, they're leading the "conservative cause" in Britain the same way Fox News and Sarah Palin are in this country.

Even if that doesn't rustle your fur, they've been sued for libel too many times to count. They just payed Sir Michael Parkinson 25,000 pounds for just that. Other settlements have been made with Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Kiera Knightley, Sharon Stone and Elton John.

When an Irish Pop singer died recently, they ran an editorial suggesting that it was due to his presumed homosexuality.

A minor point in article that's far more important, but just wanted to note that the Mail is most certainly not fine.

I enjoy coming to this site and reading your comments. The blog comments depress me sometimes. So many articulate, kind, interesting people who are clearly struggling in today's economy and world. If I was an employer who needed people who could read/write/walk and talk I would come here.

I hope I become a member. I am unemployed. I work a lot of odd jobs. I have stretches where I work for two weeks then nothing for a month.

I know there is someone reading this saying "Jesus it's five friggin bucks!" I agree. It's nothing. I rationally know that I should buy it. The thing is when you are truly struggling to keep your head above water it is really hard to justify anything that does not fall into the top of the hierarchy of needs (food, shelter, healthcare, $120.00 tickets to the City of Chicago for parking in your own driveway).

When you have eighty dollars in the bank five is a lot.

I remember I felt the same thing when Howard Stern went to satellite. People would call up and say that even though they loved the show for years and it was a huge part of their lives they couldn't justify the $120.00 for the radio and 15.00 a month for the service. I, like him, thought they were losers and cheapskates. Then, right before he switched over I lost my job in the mortgage industry. I never bought the radio. I have never had enough breathing room to justify it. I miss the show immensely (and Roger Ebert's appearances). I probably should get that radio. I'd get lots of joy from it.

Roger, I understand why you are doing this. I don't condemn you at all. I figured this was coming sooner or later. However, I think it's important that you know that you will lose readers because of this even if you aren't restricting all of your content.

Hopefully I will become a member.

I worry that putting information behind a pay wall would disproportionately affect younger users. The internet is really designed for us; after all the LOL cats and memes there is a lot of time left over to browse around and figure out what one wants to do with one's life. The internet opens up all sorts of opportunities to inform taste and world view and I would hate to see that taken away. This, obviously, has less to do with watching TV and movies online than with resource and information sites like yours and the Times.

I should also say that any Pay-Per-View would likely entail signing up with a credit or debit card (likely a US-based card for many sites), making much content unavailable for those of us overseas. I'm not sure if your hits reflect this, but you're popular in China, Mr. Ebert. I have introduced your reviews to several of my friends here not only with a view to discovering new movies but also to read good English. I would hate to have that taken away.

Roger:

You should be able to make money without resorting to a failed micropayment strategy. Although I and countless others cherish your reviews and commentary, a movie review or blog-like opinion column is not exactly hard to find. And in these hard times, too many will settle for the "free" lower-priced spread to make it worthwhile for you, I'm afraid.

And as a long-time web user, I am glad that the micropayment model has failed. Charging viewers per click would ultimately end the web as we know it, and end its growth as an information source. It would surely follow the path of cable TV, which started out at $20 per month for what was "free" TV, and now costs most people well over $100 ($175 in my case) per month for a modest list of "premium" channels which rarely offer anything worth watching.

You already have the hard part - a large and faithful audience. Sell ads. Sell your own merchandise. Ask for donations, in the Trent Reznor model. Do a periodic auction of memorabilia. Or go high tech. Charge for a live on-line fireside chat. 99.9% of webmasters would kill for what you already have.

It's a weird thing because you have to pull new folks in, but you also have to balance that against reserving content for your paid folks.

You know, I'm not sure it will work either as a long term strategy for all bloggers, but as an early adopter I hope it makes you a boatload.

I wish you luck because if you have captured the magic bullet formula, then EVERYONE can start making some money off their work.

I love you Roger, but please please please please comment on this simple question. Instead of making the obvious and anti-consumer argument that readers must be charged, why can't you and all of the other major content providers on the Web start requiring Internet service providers and search services to pay your for content? Why do all of the new costs have to come out of consumers' pockets?

Look at it this way: where did all of your money go? Easy answer: it went to the technology, the medium, for your content. Microsoft went off the charts. Google has gone off the charts. Same with Apple and Yahoo! and all of the other companies who are providing the platform for your work. And arguably consumers are now paying more than they used to for their daily news and information. And now content providers (yes, like you, but really I'm speaking to all of the people in the industry) want more from consumers.

In short, I don't see this ending well for any of you, nor for consumers...

Bethany:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/599222

Abstract: the internet could learn from strip clubs and casinos.

I've enjoyed reading you for years. I'm happy to pay for newspapers, books, and yes - web access - to read your journalism. I believing in supporting the things that bring you joy, so I'll chalk this up there with my annual contribution to public radio.

When the New York Times launches a subscription service, I won't think twice of purchasing that as well. How else to have my morning tea ritual? The Times is as important as the cup of English Breakfast.

As a blogger who has monetized my site with ads, I've seen the pittance that even respectable traffic can bring. It often makes the work that goes into the task feel less rewarding than if it were done for free. Admittedly, my blog has languished for months as my day job has become more demanding. Might be time for me to knock the dust off Wordpress and give it a go this weekend.

I consider my $4.99 a vote for quality content, but if Julian is correct, I'm delighted that my $4.99 might help keep the site free for a kid in Oaxaca.

At any rate, I'm just curious to see how many of us choose to cast votes with spendable cash, even if the denominations are small.

By the way, I enjoyed the voice replication stuff on Oprah, Roger. Hadn't had a reason to watch that show in years, but I was glad I did. Huzzah for the Scots!

Roger:

I appreciate your recent writing, some of
which is truly outstanding.
I do not support paying for your site, and
I do not think that many people will pay.
The idea of improving advertisement here
seems the best and most realistic.
Do you really want to give energy to
making money here?
For me personally, unless you are losing
money, it is best to stay in the grip
of truth for free.

cheers---Peter Pickles

Oh yes, member numbers please! Can I be #61? (that's Australia's country code and I'm in Australia and I'm Roger's #1 Australian fan and, and, oh never mind.)

Maybe you could speak to your web master about setting up a "members only" forum. There are a lot of intelligent co-readers here who obviously don't mind paying your *UNBELIEVABLY TRIVIAL* fee to ensure that rogerebert.com and I would enjoy having a venue to socialise amongst ourselves.

As far as the broad principle about paying for content, I complete disagree that the web is (or should be) universally free. I reject "entrapment" where I have to pay upfront for uncertain content. However this proposal is a model of post-consumption support (aka "loyalty" support" much like Wikipedia successfully employs. It's ideal and I am all for it.

I've been waiting for a working micropayments system since around 1994. There is a list I keep in my head of content for which I'd be happy to pay, and your movie reviews are certainly in that list, near the top.

I think that it is a matter of the right provider offering a solution, and Google seems like a pretty good candidate to pull it off. I already use them for my email and a I pay them for extra storage, so there is a billing account already set up with them in my case.

I even think that voluntary payments will work if they are low enough. At least for me, I would think nothing of paying a few cents per movie review. But given the reality of people's psychology, there may be some other inducements needed to get people to pay even small sums for quality material. Some sort of small carrot and small stick, I haven't got a clear picture of what that would be, but maybe something as simple as a provider publishing a list of 'supporters' or sending them a personal letter once a year or something would be enough.

I am an occasional browser of your web reviews but a longtime fan since growing up watching Siskel & Ebert with my dad. I read the recent Esquire story and was inspired by your strength in the face of a disease that literally took away your voice. Glad to hear your voice return electronically, although of course your written "voice" never went away.

I paid my $4.99 and hope it will help keep your reviews freely available.

If you can figure out how to make me some money too that would be greatly appreciated. I'll make you a deal, if you can get my blog to make me, say, $100/month then I will sign up for your Ebert Club. (Currently it makes $0)

Dear Mr. Ebert,

Since I first discovered your reviews (thanks to the power of Internet), I've become a fan of your writing. I will join the club, not because of the extra content (I'd hardly have time to peruse it anyway), but because I believe that quality deserves being paid for.

You might be interested in the results of "pay as much as you want" birthday sale of a popular computer game:

http://2dboy.com/2009/10/19/birthday-sale-results/

Best regards.

"...while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curious file..."

Did you smile when you wrote that?

I have an uncontrollable urge to join The Ebert Club--and it has nothing to do with Danni Ashe and her porntastic Mona Lisa smile.

Roger, you are the Russ Meyer of webmasters.

Dear Roger,

You have hit upon the right model and at a good time. The pay-if-you-think-it's-worth-it idea is becoming increasingly popular with those of use who would like to support the work that stands apart from the mountain of garbage out there.

I recommend that you add the ability to for us to optionally pay more $4.99 per month. You might be surprised at what happens.

David

My reasons for joining are personal. I was in a very dark place this time last year and your kind words meant a great deal to me. Thank you Roger! -Linnea

Hey Roger, can you name any of the books that are on to the left, and are on the top shelf(the ones not covered by the plant)? And do you recommend any of them? Also what is the name of that movie that is cut off at the right side of the image? I am referring to items in the "Roger Ebert Office" photo.

Ebert: "Headline Hunters"

I've never posted anything on your journal before, but I want you to know that I have consistently read your journal, and poured through your reviews to an extent that would be found odd by most people. When I read this entry, and then the inevitable following article, I knew I was signing up for the exact service that has been a significant part of my life for the better part of 5 years. Frankly, would I pay $5 a month for that? The answer was there before the question. I don't need any perks, I'm just a strange bird. Thank you.

I, too, consider this a $5 donation so that the site can be free for everyone. I have paid $5-25 for certain subscriptions and have rarely felt that I got my money's worth. I'm looking forward to whatever extra content I will get, but I view this as a goodwill gesture.

1/2 of all the search engine traffic directed to the Sun-Times site is because of you. Literally. I just looked it up the other day. Google keeps track of that stuff. The Sun-Times certainly should pay you well.

I watched a video from a yearly advertising convention. The big one. A panel with the owners of Google, Apple, Amazon and a few others were talking about the future of advertising and how companies would make money on the internet. They basically said, they would raid your privacy and show you only ads that cater to you...Like the eye scanner in Minority Report.

The guys who run Penny-Arcade, a free webcomic, are millionaires now. There's a few other stories like that.

YOu need to talk to Federated Media. With your hit rate -- and more importantly with the amount of time viewers spend on your site -- you could be a big earner with their syndicated ads.

That said, speaking as a friend to people who are big Danni Ashe fans, I've met you Roger. And you are no Danni Ashe.

Hello, Rojy.
You seem a little bit disillusioned and angry, so am I ( If you're really disillusioned and angry ). I was surprisingly entertained by this; it's a diffirent Roger with a collateral Ebert. I'm glad to tell you that you don't only have readers or rather "fans" from Yemen or Pago Pago ( Which I just googled ), you also have at least a dedicated reader from Libya. Can you imagine? Libya?
I'm waiting for your interview with Oprah; along with the oscars, they're two major events for me this week.

A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE :
If you remember me, I'm always irrelevant when I comment to your articles, but it's the only way to communicate with you, so prepare for the next actual pain in the ass.
I've been thinking about death lately, specially after the tragic departure of my cousin, and so being miserably desperate, I need one last act. I'd profoundly appreciate your fast look at my writings. You can see them at http://www.amateurwriting.net/home.php. I'm submitted by "21 Grams', my username. You'll have my page. They're roughly 12 pieces. Among all the twelve, if you liked one idea, not a piece, only an idea, I will pursue.
I'd rather have them reviewd by you other than Ezra Pound or a jerk T.S Eliot, seriously.

I'll totally understand if you couldn't, and I'm sorry for any disturbance.

P.S. I'm wondering if T.S Eliot aware of this jibberish.

I paid union dues for 31 1/2 years, until I retired. Having been a government employee and thus working in an open shop, I didn't have to. I listened to other employees ask "Why pay? The union has to represent you anyway." I paid because it was the right thing to do and accordingly, I paid my Ebert club dues before reading any of the justification. The value added to my life by you is immeasurable. It's a privilege to take advantage of your invitation to allow us to finally do the right thing.

I didn't even have to think about it - I sent my payment within seconds of seeing your proposition.

I've given $5 to strangers begging for money on the street, so why wouldn't I give $5 to someone who has given me years of entertainment? Seems like a no-brainer to me...

So I gave my payment, got my receipt, yet now I wonder : what next? How do I access the value-added content when it is available?

I'm signed up! Looking forward to insider-y fun.

More broadly, I think people need to get over the fantasy that content can be free and still keep getting created. A micropayment like this is cheaper after all (and lower impact to the environment, especially if we are sure to recycle our old computers) than getting a snail mail magazine subscription.

I'm in! It actually looks like everything I've enjoyed for about 12 years is still going to be free. However, I joined for a variety of reasons.

First, I don't think I've ever done anything in return for the years of enjoyment you've given me. I started reading the site sometime in '98, and it was your "Dark City" review that made me a weekly reader from then on. You've actually answered some emails I've sent, and led me to tons of great movies. You prompted me to track down a laserdisc of "The Last Laugh". I've disagreed with you as often as I've agreed, but when we do agree, you put things the best way possible. When we disagree I'm at least entertained. This is the least I could do.

Also, some of the new features sound like I might use them when I wouldn't have otherwise. A forum where posts are only made by people that care enough about your site (which means they care about movies) sounds very appealing and likely to have less useless noise than a free public forum. It is a price that even I, working retail at just over minimum wage, can afford. Five bucks is a good amount to show you care enough to go to the trouble, but not so much that it excludes anyone.

While I'll likely make posts professing my love of Troma, video games, and other such things you'll likely skim over (I'll also bitch about Michael Bay a lot), know that you've changed my movie viewing for the better and that has changed my life for the better. I'm still catching up, finally watched "The Seventh Seal" on Blu-ray, which never would have happened without you. I think it was your review of "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" where I first caught you mentioning it. Thanks for leading me to a great film and great experience!

Out of curiosity, is there any chance that Ebertfest will be moved forward one week? I have been waiting for the past five years to go but the same conflict on my schedule that I participate in annually keeps showing up the weekend of Ebertfest. I want to get down there and meet you before the years catch up with either of us. Or alternatively, do you think you'll do a meet and greet for club members in Chicago at the Film Festival this year?

-Rich

Without trying to derail the thread, I have a Danni's Hard Drive anecdote to share. I applied years ago for a behind the scenes job with her site. In response I received an emailed "Aptitude Test," one that I found odd enough to save for future amusement. This should give you some idea of the skills necessary to make loads of cash from your site.

Incidentally, I did not get the job, probably at least in part due to difficulties impersonating a bisexual female.

1) What is 57.5% of 6,193,567?

2) A website receives 30,000 visitors and 150 of those visitors become members. Out of every 1000 visitors the website receives how many visitors on average join the website?

3) Do you have an Internet connection at home? If so is it broadband or dial-up?

4) Would you be willing appear on Television as a representative of Danni.com?

5) Are you available for interview in Los Angeles?

6) Correct the mistakes in the following text. There are at least 10 mistakes and omissions [P.S., not sure how much of this is the original text and how much I altered]:

Europe's first brothel catering for women has gone bankrupt because customers refused to pay up, German police said Friday.

The brothel owner, whom police named only as Clemens K., 31, was arrested in Germany after he resorted to mugging an elderly couple with a toy gun.

"He told us his brothel had gone bust. If they'd operated like a normal brothel and made sure they got the money before the sex, they would have been all right," said Peter-Georg Biewald, a police spokesman in Waldshut, southwestern Germany.

"But they didn't ask for money until afterwards and the women only paid for what they thought the service had been worth."

Clemens ran the brothel with five other male prostitutes in the village of Leibstadt in Switzerland, close to the German border.

"When it opened at the beginning of December, the media celebrated it as Europe's first brothel for women. But I can't imagine he had a lot of visitors," said Biewald.

7) Write a short piece of copy to promote a Live Strip event performed by Kyla Cole (http://models.danni.com/models/mod11427.html). The writing style should be light, personable, intimate and sexy. It should read as if it's coming from one friend to another. The writer should appear to be a bisexual female.

8) Which company or companies would you define as Danni.com's primary competitors and why?

9) How do you think the Bush administration might affect the day-to-day operations of Danni.com and why?

10) How would you describe pornography? What do you think about sexually explicit material?

Douglas Adams not-so-famously observed that a lot of companies aren't in the business you think they are. Xerox, for example, is in the business of selling toner cartridges. And the best example is that the TV business is about creating audiences to sell to advertisers.

I don't understand why the Internet should be any different than television. If you've really got a million people reading your pages, that many eyeballs should be worth a lot to advertisers. And if you want to get people to pay directly, you can offer the ad-free version.

But I have to admit, I also don't understand how it can cost so much to put up a website. My own provider charges 100 dollars a year, and allows unlimited storage and bandwidth. After an initial outlay to a web designer to build the site, it doesn't take a lot of effort to maintain and update.

I used to frequent the Avril Lavigne fansite, avrilbandaids.com, until I became frustrated with the sheer volume of advertising -- pop-ups, banners, cookies, spyware -- it was unbelievable, and I had to abandon the site in disgust. The proprietor of the site claimed that it wasn't greed, but that it was necessary to cover the 12,000 dollars she spent on the site every year. For what? The entire site's content is submitted by viewers!

Roger,
I have never commented before, but have been tremendously affected by your words for years. I am glad that the site will continue to be free, but I will also gladly pay a fee in order to continue to keep it that way. I would pay much more than $4.99 for a year's access to your work. I have spent hours pouring over your words, and have spent more lost in thought after my laptop has closed. I know you spend many, many more hours online and in thought to share this blog and website with us, and I believe that these efforts should be echoed with an appropriate paycheck. I hope this works.

I understand your desire to make a little money from the site. This has got to be one of the top visited internet sites on the internet, and I feel like your work here goes so far above and beyond what you do for the print media. I will gladly chip in $4.99 a year just for the pleasure of surfing over to rogerebert.com at least twice a day to either check for blog updates or read old reviews.

As a suggestion for a "perk" you might offer members though... how about an autographed book? I know how wary you are of the whole autograph phenomenon and all, but there are plenty of people who would pay to have Roger Ebert's signature on a copy of the Movie Yearbook. (I'd probably get one, even though your autograph on my worn, frayed copy of The Great Movies II from when I met you in 2005 is pretty cool to show off to guests.)

That's just one suggestion. I'll keep visiting the site either way, and join the Ebert Club either way. Just do me a favor and keep your reviews in the paper; one of my favorite things to do when I visit Chicago (which isn't nearly enough) is to buy a copy of the Sun-Times and sit down for a quality discussion about movies between you, me, and a cup of coffee.

I understand your desire to make a little money from the site. This has got to be one of the top visited internet sites on the internet, and I feel like your work here goes so far above and beyond what you do for the print media. I will gladly chip in $4.99 a year just for the pleasure of surfing over to rogerebert.com at least twice a day to either check for blog updates or read old reviews.

As a suggestion for a "perk" you might offer members though... how about an autographed book? I know how wary you are of the whole autograph phenomenon and all, but there are plenty of people who would pay to have Roger Ebert's signature on a copy of the Movie Yearbook. (I'd probably get one, even though your autograph on my worn, frayed copy of The Great Movies II from when I met you in 2005 is pretty cool to show off to guests.)

That's just one suggestion. I'll keep visiting the site either way, and join the Ebert Club either way. Just do me a favor and keep your reviews in the paper; one of my favorite things to do when I visit Chicago (which isn't nearly enough) is to buy a copy of the Sun-Times and sit down for a quality discussion about movies between you, me, and a cup of coffee.

"An Invitation from The Ebert Club; or, Rog Asks for Money"

I'm a little bit put off by this special invitation. I didn't see this website as anything more than a glorified blog from a gentlemen who enjoys watching movies and is gifted at coming up with unique phrases to say about them. Now we learn that for a low introductory rate of $4.99, we can gain essentially nothing in addition. Rog, if you're so desperate for money, if you think that you need a way to make money on the internet, I may have some sound advice for you...don't offer the website for free anymore! Is it too troubling to discover how many "loyal" viewers actually go out of their way to pay the nominal fee? Don't be afraid, jump right in! Someone so immersed in the film industry should know that business is not for the faint of heart!

BTW if you know of any good screenwriting agents, feel free to send their emails to my inbox. Thanks.

No need for a justification. I joined the club immediately upon seeing the headline on the main page. In the words of Russ Meyer, "I was glad to do it."

"Danni Ashe, proprietor of Danni's Hard Drive One of those few webmasters capable of taking their shirts off without driving down the hit count."

I'd like to see some of those webmasters that took their shirts, which then drove people away.

"Danni Ashe, proprietor of Danni's Hard Drive One of those few webmasters capable of taking their shirts off without driving down the hit count."

I'd like to see some of those webmasters that took their shirts off, which then drove people away.

Roger,

I treasure every day you are with us. I love your blog. It reminds me of that one part in "Little Big Man" when Chief Dan George said "Thank You for making me a Human Being! Thank You for helpin' me to become a warrior! Thank You for my victories, and for my defeats! Thank You for my vision, and the blindness in which I saw further!

In the silence of your voice you say so much.

You replied to an email of mine once and your reply was so thoughtful and considerate and so human I bragged to everyone I knew about gettomg it.

Thank you, Mr. Ebert. Thank you.

I paid my $4.99. I probably would've paid $100 if you'd just asked. You lost $95.01 there, dude.

I would also say that the extra content wasn't actually a big incentive; however as this is one of the best sites on the web, I've got no problem throwing in a few ducats to help it along. I think a fiver is incredibly cheap given the years of joy I've had from reading your writing.

That a site this popular does not bring in enough advertising revenue to more than cover expenses is alarming, and somewhat depressing news for those of us looking up.

As for this new club, I'm in -- this is the site I visit most consistently, so only fair -- but I plan to get in on the ground floor before the payment goes up by a penny.

You make some interesting points on the future of the newspaper industry and content providers in general. At our blog, TheSharkGuys.com, we have offered 25 solutions to save the newspaper industry (click my name for that).

Cheers!

If I compare the amount of time I spent reading your writing (and some of the excellent comments by the blog readers) with the amount paid for a yearly membership, well that turns into a riduculous small amount for each hour spent on your site. Happy to pay for something of such great quality (extra content is not key for me, but writing is work and good work should always be rewarded!) Speaking of extra content, more Danni pictures for members? (you can throw in the odd picture of Robert Pattison for the female audience :))

Wait a second. There's pornography on the internet?

I appreciate your desire to create a lucrative and sustainable website, but I'm sceptical that your model will work. The offerings of the Ebert Club are not very appealing. If you want this initiative to be successful, you'll need to come up with more creative ideas.

Here's a few:
- make your pay site a marketplace for indie filmmakers. Let people post their films on your site, and take the time to offer your opinions. That would be very alluring.

- live online screening events: stream a film online once or twice a month wherein you offer live comment and post-film discussions

- teach: offer instruction and wisdom on the writing process for film criticism and for general journalism

- Great Films discussions: the regular blog tends to focus on "the new". Take the time to engage in conversations with your members about older films. Once or twice a month, take time to reflect on a classic, and invite your members to share their own reflections. Respond.

-Publish: produce a journal a few times a year and invite submissions from your members. Share the editorial responsibilities with members.

The key ideas here are community, accessibility and productivity.

How about...

#1 - more reviews of older movies - for example, comparatively few of Hitchcock's movies are reviewed here

#2 - more detailed reviews/analysis of certain movies (i.e. Citizen Kane commentary, but in written form. Well maybe not the entire commentary, but something longer and more detailed than a traditional review)

Here's a crazy idea:

Make your club 'exclusive'. Rather than throwing the doors open to just anyone willing to pay $5, make access an honour to be earned. Only those who are 'invited' are welcome to join. You send out an initial invitation to your best commenters and friends, and give them all 4 invitations each (maybe more for celebrity members). Then anyone they invite also gets 4 invitations, and so on.

This may seem counter-intuitive to your goals, but I bet it would greatly increase membership. It adds value, makes membership into something special, and insures a higher quality of discourse. Non-members will be more interested in joining: exclusion has a way of peaking ones curiosity.

Ultimately, Roger, you may be the captain of your ship, but it's the members who are going keep the ship afloat and on course. Controlling access will help establish a high level of discourage from the outset, and members will feel they are getting their money's worth.

I feel it might be an error for you to go this route. I am not a big time commenter on things bloggish because little interests me.

Your reviews do. As some have mentioned, I feel they are a boon to those seeking knowledge.

Is this weblog run by you or the paper? If the paper, I think they can generate enough ad revenue via your name power alone. Not to feed your ego but as you mention you are the most widely read critic around: of film, theater, books, music.

I am not saying we have a right to your stuff for free, but this seems as misguided as the music industry when it did not see music sharing as advertisement, not a rival.

As example I just commented on the post you did about another critic recently: Dan Schneider. Aside from thinking it was a tremendous thing to do in terms of exposing his excellent writings to your audience, it showed a generosity of spirit. You have written of the fortuities of others in helping your career, and articles like the one on Schneider, or small films needing a boost, or the fellow watching all the obscure DVDs of foreign films, help regular folks like us connect to others like us, as well as you. Behind a firewall, the impact of the articles on Schneider or indy films would be far lessened.

Surely, after five decades as a famed critic, any monetization of your product cannot be VITAL to your bank account. You must have owned a good portion of your shows, right?

Anyway I just think this is an idea that can and likely will backfire (see the Newsday mention). The last thing you want to do is wall yourself away from newer fans in your dotage. Writers of substance need to broaden readership, not the reverse.

Just my thoughts. But, I do want to ask a question raised by the Schneider piece. There was some debate over your merits as a film critic, a film historian, and a film expert.

Obviously your bread and butter has been as a critic but decades from now, do you see your place in film history as more relying on your expertise and film historian labels, or not? I tend to think that mere reviews are nice, but not discursive enough to last long beyond a film's lifespan in the media glare.

I think your DVD commentaries will be listened to and relished for years to come.

Any thoughts on which of the three things will last longest? And which would you choose to be known as most, if you had your way?

Cheers.

Addendum:

I agree with the reader who said that the Internet cheapens the value of content.

Also, would you even be moved to recommend other websites and critics like Schneider or other film blogs if by doing so, under this model, meant they were essentially "business" rivals?

Just a thought.

Roger: If I was smarter, could write better and was better looking...we'd almost be the same person. That's how much I agree with our opinions.

On this issue, however, I think you're off the mark.

I'm forking over $116 every month to the evil Comcast empire for internet/phone/TV. That's a lot of scratch.

Would I like to pay extra for every phone conversation? Or extra for every channel I surfed thru? Hell no. So why should I be okay with paying extra for clicking on websites? (By the way, I don't click on 40 per day, more like 800 per day.)

I'm sorry that you and many others work very hard to put together a site that me and many others enjoy and then you don't make much (or any) money from it.

But I already feel like I'm paying, and paying too much I might add.

To me, the problem is advertising. Or, more accurately, advertising failure.

It's a model that has worked just fine for radio and television for decades. And now, television is even figuring out how to work around DVR's with product placement and shorter ads mixed into content. These sales 'whizzes' need to figure out how to do the same thing for websites.

You web guys complain that "we" want it all for free and don't want to pay for content. And when I hear that and then look at my monthly Comcast bill, I wince.

No, let me be more precise. I don't wince, I get pissed. I'm not getting anything for free. Maybe, you're not the one getting my money, but I'm paying.

Someone just needs to figure out how to better divide up the money or come up with a better business plan.

You may get more than 35 subscribers if you start charging for your content, but you won't get me. And I love your stuff.

Let me ask you this (with all sincerity; I know nothing of your personal economic situation): Do you need the money? Is there something you want that you do not have? Are you contemplating doing something other than publishing this site to fulfill your needs? Or are you following the principle that if something is of value, it "ought" to be paid for?

I say in all seriousness and without hyperbole or exaggeration that your work here is a tremendous service to humanity. Culture is of critical importance to human beings, movies are a huge element of human culture, and culture without criticism is no culture at all. As you note, the value of your work is tremendously enhanced because it is indeed freely available for everyone. There's no one anywhere near your stature; you will be remembered and cited for centuries as *the* authoritative movie critic of the late 20th century.

As I'm sure you're aware, the entire world is facing an economic crisis of epic proportions, easily the worst since the Great Depression. We're still not out of the woods yet; it's entirely possible that given the incompetence of our government and the intransigence of powerful capitalists and their representatives, that this crisis may well prove even worse than the Great Depression.

This crisis is not a "physical" crisis. We have not had an earthquake or meteor wipe out our productive capability. This crisis is, rather, entirely social and political: it's a failure of our relationships, our ideas about how to relate and interact with each other about economic production and consumption.

It is arguable that one of these failed ideas is precisely the idea that *without exception* everyone "ought" to be paid according to the value they produce, regardless of their overall economic position. We must ensure, of course, that people are indeed able to live a comfortable and dignified life; we should not expect anyone to live in slavery.

There's nothing objectionable about your idea for the club. Were I not in fairly dire economic circumstances, I would probably join, as much or more for helping to keep the bulk of your work freely available as for the additional content.

Like I said, I don't know about your particular economic situation. I suspect, drawing inferences from the scanty clues you drop in your writing, that you do indeed live a comfortable and dignified life.

By dint of your talent, character and hard work, you are perhaps in a position to directly and openly challenge and subvert the dominant ideas, ideas that may well be at the root of our global economic crisis. And perhaps you are in a position to challenge those ideas without sacrificing your own comfort and dignity. I ask only this: think critically about whether or not you want to challenge these ideas, and evaluate carefully the actual benefits and drawbacks of the various alternatives. Do you have more to gain than another digit in your bank account?

As others have said, I don't feel the 'value-added' features add much value, but I'm going to join the club simply because I like you, Roger, and I like reading your reviews and blog entries.

Maybe you'd draw more subscribers if you made yourself available for an hour each week in a chat room open exclusively to club members?

Honestly the more l33t among us have already figured out how to set up most of the benefits of the Ebert Club.

But, I'm planning to buy in (later this month) for the same reason I paid $10 to Radiohead for "In Rainbows" when I could have gotten it from them for free: I was just tickled at the idea of paying them *directly* for the music, and by extension for all of the pleasure I had gotten in previous years from their music. As opposed to tossing the money into the record industry maw and hoping they would eventually get 5 cents out of it (or whatever the ridiculous profit margin is by RIAA math).. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09radiohead.html

I've checked your website every Friday morning for quite a few years. I'm happy to pay in. And would like to see the site stay free for everyone else.

Just checked a review for this weekend, saw the invitation, and signed up. No way I'm going to pass up that great early-bird discount! I must have read 499 of your reviews and columns by now, so as far as I'm concerned I'm still ahead on the deal.

Micropayments don't work because the credit card companies still charge 30 cents and 3% on a transaction, and the banks charge 75 cents, even though the electronic clearing involves no human work and minimal incremental cost. Maybe we're all paying off the mortgage on building those electronic systems, or maybe they have such a great racket skimming the gravy off the money system that they don't want to give anything away. And I suppose we need *someone* with some legal responsibility somewhere when real money is involved (I had bad experience with PayPal early on and don't trust them) (but why did someone need to invent that when the "legitimate" banking system should have been doing it?).

Mr. Ebert, I have derived so many hours of entertainment and education from reading your Web posts. I am more than happy to become a member. (I would have paid more, too...wink...). There is so much utter crap on the internet... your site is a light of humor, insight and joy. Thank you!

I don't really need "special features." I enjoy your site enough that I would happily pay $5 on a voluntary basis. I particularly enjoy your increased written output since the surgery. I must admit, though, that I find myself assuming that a certain degree of financial difficulty accompanies this. If the site were just a compilation of reviews, or if I imagined you were rich, I might feel differently.
Here would be a real benefit: I don't mind that the Sun-Times site is advertising-supported, but it annoys me that the ads are so heavily animated that it greatly slows loading; if your "club" bypassed that advertising, it would be more than worth the $5.

It is indeed an honor to help fund your website. I don't find it all offensive to help pay for something I get so much enjoyment from. I have an idea for extra content for membership - access to future podcasts using "Roger Jr.", What a treat that would be !

This is my first blog comment, after a long time spent enjoying your writing wherever and whenever I could get it. My lack of participation in the site to date in no way corresponds to the intensity of my interest in the blog, your entire body of work, and indeed your corporal self.

Just to get this out of the way... Waiting for you to appear on Oprah as I played it back on the DVR felt a bit like what I suspect would be the sensation waiting for the curtain to go up on a Beatles reunion concert in 1979 or so... An against the odds delight and a renewal of hope from an unexpected place. I believe Elevation is a useful name for the feeling.

Anyhoo, the minute I saw the blurb for the Ebert Club (I would prefer the use of League or Society, but if we can get cards Club would be fine) I hit the PayPal button and sent the chump change you are requesting. And then I realized I never actually signed up with the blog, and there might not be anyway for you to tie me to my payment.

So now you have customer service overhead to consider. Sorry! In one sense I wouldn't care if I don't get included, since five bucks for all the pleasure I've gotten from this site is almost embarrassingly little, but honestly I don't want to miss anything you're putting out. So am I on your list, and if not how do I get there?

Warmest regards,

CP Lyons

This is my first blog comment, after a long time spent enjoying your writing wherever and whenever I could get it. My lack of participation in the site to date in no way corresponds to the intensity of my interest in the blog, your entire body of work, and indeed your corporal self.

Just to get this out of the way... Waiting for you to appear on Oprah as I played it back on the DVR felt a bit like what I suspect would be the sensation waiting for the curtain to go up on a Beatles reunion concert in 1979 or so... An against the odds delight and a renewal of hope from an unexpected place. I believe Elevation is a useful name for the feeling.

Anyhoo, the minute I saw the blurb for the Ebert Club (I would prefer the use of League or Society, but if we can get cards Club would be fine) I hit the PayPal button and sent the chump change you are requesting. And then I realized I never actually signed up with the blog, and there might not be anyway for you to tie me to my payment.

So now you have customer service overhead to consider. Sorry! In one sense I wouldn't care if I don't get included, since five bucks for all the pleasure I've gotten from this site is almost embarrassingly little, but honestly I don't want to miss anything you're putting out. So am I on your list, and if not how do I get there?

Warmest regards,

CP Lyons

Whew. I haven't made money for my writing since the five bucks an article I got as a staff writer for the Albany Student Press in college. At least I'm not alone.

That's the trade-off of the web, though. We have heretofore unheard of democracy of expression. If you have a working internet connection (even if you don't, since you can always borrow one from the library), you can express your opinions, share your expertise, or just rattle on about your life to anyone who's interested. Trouble is, it's harder for a writer to monetize his work.

I think Value-Added is probably the best solution right now. The web has been free-access for so long that there would be a revolt if someone tried to post a bouncer and charge a cover. Well, maybe not a revolt. More like a sweeping rejection (like Newsweek's paltry subscriptions). Value-Added leaves the web open, but creates VIP sections for those so inclined. How many people will be so inclined? I guess that's the question.

Good luck!

I've been a reader of your blog and online reviews for about a year now. Before that time I would occasionally look up one of your reviews before I would decide to see a movie, but when I discovered the blog I started to come back daily to read you. This will be my first post because I generally don't have time to follow and remain engaged in online discussions (Facebook is constantly reminding me to reconnect with friends I SEE on a daily basis).

I'm posting because I enjoy your work and would like to see it continue, so I have a few suggestions for your Value-Added content. I have come across a few Value-Added sites that will offer pay content to subscribers and then after a month behind the paywall this content becomes free. I feel that this is something that would work well for you. I know your reviews and blog will remain free (something I am grateful for) but perhaps things like your reports from film festivals and special articles/reports could fall into this catagory. This would provide something unique and special for the diehard followers but the less enthusiastic would not feel they are missing out.

One thing I DO NOT agree with is the creation of a seperate discussion thread for the paying subscribers and the freeloaders. One of the great things about your blog is the intelligent discussion that can occur and also your willingness to contribute and read all of it. If you seperate that into two halves it will become significantly less effective. Imagine having to post in a new blog explaining to readers what is happening in the subscriber's thread. It will become tedious for you and will alienate readers who feel like they aren't included. Keeping seperate threads for the Value-Added content would still be possible, and if following the above suggestion, once the content was made free everyone would be able to join in the conversation.

There was also a poster above who suggested a "tip jar" which I think is a great idea for your site. I know these can be very effective as this is what all the collabrotive projects that are done over the web use. You may well make more using that than with a subscription base. It also just feels like it fits YOU more. I don't mean to presume anything, but I've read several of these posts and many say something along the lines of, "I don't think the added content looks that great, but what you're already doing is more than worth it to me." By introducing this in the first place you are clearly not too proud to ask for help. If you have a tip jar running dry, just point us to it as a reminder that it is there.

I think your work is great and hope to see it continue for a long time. Maybe now that I've jumped into the community I'll start posting in other discussions. Thank you for your work!

The logical solution based upon your piece is obvious: hard core Ebert porn. I'm surprised you didn't think of it. You can call it: way, way, way beyond the valley of the dolls.

But I shouldn't scoff. I would consider joining for the same reason as many here: devotion to the site, rather than any extra content ( the newsletter sounds like a nuisance). I was involved with another blog in the past and they seemed to get by on donations from those who had made a home there and on advertising revenue (from Google if memory serves). Also comments are processed by volunteers (if you want any of that kind of help I think you'd find plenty of contenders).

"For the freedom of information and the freedom of art, I ask that you rethink your "Ebert Club."

By Kevin C. on March 3, 2010 5:50 PM

Aww, how cute. I always find it adorable when someone begins their claims that their 'information' should be free and demand that their artists remain starving. Piracy dressed as human rights.

I think this is a fantastic idea and considering the work you put into this and the benefit millions of people gain from it, in a just world you would be living fat and rich. $4.99 a month sounds grea....wait, a year?! Are you crazy?!

"For the freedom of information and the freedom of art, I ask that you rethink your "Ebert Club."

By Kevin C. on March 3, 2010 5:50 PM

Aww, how cute. I always find it adorable when someone begins their claims that their 'information' should be free and demand that their artists remain starving. Piracy dressed as human rights.

I think this is a fantastic idea and considering the work you put into this and the benefit millions of people gain from it, in a just world you would be living fat and rich. $4.99 a month sounds grea....wait, a year?! Are you crazy?!

Ditto many above. I joined, not primarly due to the exclusive content, but because your site is well worth $4.99 (or even $5!). What a helluva deal compared to a paperback novel, my NYT, or a WSJ e-subscription.

RogerEbert.com is my number one go-to site for edification and amusement. It is my homepage, so I start every morning with you! Between the reviews and the blog, there is a guaranteed daily chuckle, deep thought, or teary eye. It is only fair that I give a very small amount to subsidize that.

I second those who think a tip jar might work for you, and definitely sign me up for a "Your Movie Sucks" T-shirt!

Roger,

Your value proposition is weak. No one writing on this blog seems interested in the content offered by the Ebert Club, but some are willing to pay the $4.99 fee because they like you. To get a strong response to the Ebert Club, a strong content proposition is in order. One idea to strengthen your content is to provide 90% of your new reviews for free but limit "prime reviews" to paying customers. Like the Supreme Court and porn, you will know which reviews when you see them. This could help usher along value priced movie tickets, which business school students have preached for years. (Why price Cop Out tickets the same as Avatar? For that matter, why price Avatar's opening weekend tickets the same as Avatar 10 weeks into its run?)

An Ebert Club test: I don't feel pissed to be left out of the Ebert Club's twitter page, but I would be pissed to find out Ebert's 3 1/2 star Shutter Island review cost money to read. Pissed enough to spend $5? Maybe, after I get pissed 4-5 times, I will suck it up and take the plunge to see what you think about important movies.

Roger Ebert, internet pioneer: value pricer of prime movie reviews.

From a publishing perspective, I look at the Internet more as a marketing tool for hard copy purchases. For example, I have purchased many copies of your books for my personal library, and I purchased them AFTER and DUE TO reading your online content. I do hope you're planning to publish Great Movies III sometime soon! :-)

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to take something back once others have already tasted it, and that's the problem with the free distribution of content on the Internet.

It's kind of like a marriage. If one spouse does all the cooking and the housework for ten years, then guess what: the other spouse will come to take this for granted. If the first spouse stops doing it after ten years, the other spouse will get upset, even if he cannot come up with any rational justification whatsoever for his reaction. He will just manufacture a flimsy justification if he has to.

Similarly, Internet users have become accustomed to free content, and they have come to think that anyone asking for money is being "unreasonable". I wish Roger well with this idea, but I don't know if there is any resolution to this problem that will make content providers happy.

On the other hand, it's not as if content providers are particularly suffering compared to other industries. Manufacturing has suffered millions of job losses over the past few decades while the entertainment and publishing industries thrived and congratulated themselves on being part of "the new service economy". I doubt you would find too many struggling manufacturing workers who would shed a great flood of tears for the publishing or entertainment industries now.

Roger --

Count me among those who will happily pay $4.99. I've only given the "added value" features a cursory glance, and I can't foresee making the trip out to Ebertfest, as much as I'd love to one of these years. But I'd have trouble following the logic of anyone who has a problem with this. Maintaining the site requires money. You've created the site and give of your time and energy -- both creative and physical -- freely to make it what it is, but you shouldn't have to bear the financial responsibilities for it. (And the Sun-Times has its own problems.)

If we, your frequent readers, find pleasure and intellectual stimulation and wisdom in this community, then we should share the cost. I won't say burden, because voluntarily paying the equivalent of a venti mint mocha at a coffee shop or a large popcorn at a theatre for a year of being able to say we support the site is not a burden. In fact, it's a privilege.

In response to your entry about the Esquire piece, I called this blog a community, and so I believe it to be. As in a traditional community, the longer one stays, the more one begins to understand its rhythms and its spirit. Certain faces become familiar when you see them around. There's Tom Dark -- he must be done feeding the horses. Here comes Randy Masters -- don't get him started on Darwin, but have you seen the photographs he takes? A few becomes civic leaders -- and congratulations to Marie Haws on the equivalent of being appointed to chair the town council. And being on the web, this community is not bound by geography, so people far away can be part of it if the community's ethos draws them. How enriched this community is by members like S. M. Rana, Seonyong Cho, and Indian Idiot.

But if we understand this to be a community, we all have some responsibilities to it. That $4.99 will be what keeps the traffic lights from breaking down and the park clean. The only alternative model is the corporate one, and we've got enough corporate branding as it is. If my $4.99 helps prevent this from becoming "Roger Ebert's Journal brought to you by ExxonMobil" or "The Cialis-Roger Ebert Journal (motto: "We're not just thumbs-up any more!"), it's money well spent.

I could be wrong, but my guess is that enough of us will sign on to the Ebert Club that you won't have any trouble maintaining the site. In fact, you might even achieve a steady profit. If that happens, you can roll that money over into improving the site, or bring one of your foreign correspondents each year over to Ebertfest, or offer a small prize or scholarship for some young lover of film, or whatever you want. (Hell, I doubt any of us would object if you used it to take Chaz out. I saw the Oprah interview. She kept you alive. Without her, we're not doing this now.)

One more point about community. I would also include in those responsibilities adherence to certain rules of civilized behavior and respectful debate. It's immediately obvious when one of your more political entries has attracted attention because suddenly a plague of bad manners and worse logic (ad hominem attacks, hasty generalizations, and other fallacies) breaks out on the board. One wishes one could pull these people aside and say, "We don't do that here. We don't always agree, but we talk and listen respectfully. Put down the can of spray paint." I bring that up only because you seem to think it a matter of personal integrity to vet all those negative comments. Please feel free not to. We trust you. We know you won't censor someone just because he or she takes a contrary position. This is a diverse and welcoming community. But if someone comes here just to lob rocks at the mayor's house, just give him the bum's rush.

I have joined your club and anxiously await my Roger Ebert Decoder Ring and T-shirt. I am an amateur graphic designer and would be delighted to help in any way I could, should you be interested. I am loyal, punctual, and hard working. I look forward to your blogs and reviews, and rubbing my club membership in the face of lesser members of the population. God Bless!

So I don't know if I'm a fan of the value added scheme. It's just a minor reworking of the donation scheme. It seems to me that if you want value added to work you have to put really good content behind the paywall, and if you're going to put the best bits behind a paywall, you end up defeating the purpose of a free-to-all website. If you don't end up offering anything good, then all you're asking for is donations, which I believe is tacky for large websites outside of Wikipedia. Donations are best for small niche websites with a close community. So I wish you luck with your Ebert club experiment but I will not be a paying customer, sorry.

I don't know if you explored this option but I've always been a fan of the T-shirt scheme. This is where the website offers free high quality content to a wide audience,(something your site excels at) and then once people are at the site, sell them site related merchandise. T-shirts being the most common example, but it works for books, mugs, dvds, etc...

I'm surprised you didn't mention the ultimate money loser on the web, youtube, in this blog entry.

Geez, all this to-do about $4.99 for access to information that enriches life. $4.99 PER YEAR. $4.99 is the cost of my whole grain, low carb tortillas. They only last one week. $4.99 is a sack of dry cat food. I love my cat more than some people. And $4.99 is far less than some of the "micropayments" from my friends as they've kept me going during unemployment. I suppose for many people they feel no one should pay for anything but I'm thinking maybe if we stuck our hands in our pockets for others more often, and for quality, fun, education and community (which is what this is, it is a community) then maybe the country wouldn't be in the deep doo-doo it is. Some folks favorite thing about the internet is anonimity, that they can troll around and take snippets from others like a big fat libary and not pay for the books. So be it. But Roger, I would have paid $10 a year for whatever you have here. And $4.99 is the price of many monthly magazines. Where, folks, is this not a bargain? I'm currently watching old John Garfield movies. I'm ready for my Oscar night. My "tribe" is starting their own monthly movie club. I can't imagine a world without film, without writing, and without creativity. We'll always have this. The extra we're going to get for the $4.99 will be fun, fun, fun and worth it. I'm thinking that $4.99 (love the introductory rate) is a steal. Good wishes. Every good deed we do comes back to us a million fold. I know this first hand.

I've paid my initial membership fee.

Now all I'm asking for is the release of a dvd collector's set of the Best of Siskel and Ebert. Kind of like that one Oprah released a few years back.

Just joined the Ebert Club, absolutely stoked for it. At first I was a little bummed that I'm losing that 4.99--that's like, five less bags of sour Skittles I'm going to be able to buy this year. But after consulting with my financial advisors, I think I found a way to offset some soda expenses for the first quarter of 2011 by deferring a couple of expected shoestring purchases until fourth quarter 2012. In the meantime, I'll be scouring the curbs and gutters of my neighborhood for discarded twine. People just throw that stuff away all the time. And even if I can't tie my shoes in 2011, I'll just wear them open. That's the way all the kids do it these days anyway.

I see a lot of whiners out there who have spent a lot of time writing dissertation-length posts on why they think intellectual ambrosia should be free of charge. I've read you for years, and I know that thoughts don't come cheap. It takes hours of work every day to turn out articles that challenge and ignite your readers.

It's economics. Everyone has thoughts. Yours are worth paying for.

Here's more economics. If we either don't need the thing, or can get something of equal value elsewhere for free - which is the case for literally just about everything online - we don't have to pay for it. We have no incentive to pay money for the thing. There. Economics.

Also, as one of the aforementioned 'whiners', if my post daunted you by being dissertation-length, I can only imagine what a struggle is each and every entry by Mr Ebert. It must be to you like reading War and Peace.

Incidentally, the reason that all of your comments are appearing in bold italics is that you left out a couple of closing tag HTML tags in your caption that reads, "In 1984, Negroponte predicts the future at the first TED conference." The correct HTML should be:

In 1984, Negroponte predicts the future at the first TED conference.

You're missing the tags.

First, Chicago parking meters fees skyrocket, now Ebert is introducing pay-memberships; I suppose he will use reconciliation to pass this!

With due respect, I suggest one reason you may not be making money on your website (despite the extraordinary quality of the content) is the design of the site itself. The design of this site is extremely poor. It is the web circa 2000, clunky and garish. Take a look a blog sites that make real money, and you will see that most are very well designed. Invest in the services of one of the many top-quality web designers, and they will deliver a unified design and functionality complete with typography, layout, style, logos, color palette, etc.

I'm in! I just hope there's no dress code...

Agustín Carmona wrote on March 3, 2010 8:18 PM:

High school is starting for me and my studying obligations will morally force me to not thinking of visting the web for anything else that isin't study proposes. Also, even if I didin't had school up my ass, I doubt my parents would allow me to spend money on website, and my own would burn out quickly. You know how this is; when you're a teenager and you don't have a credit card, and you want to buy something by Pay-Pal, blah, blah, blah... It's the same problem I have with wanting to buy Thesis, the highly customizable theme for WordPress that costs either $87 or $164, depending on the option you'd prefer. Will my parents really let me to use their credit card's numbers and spend that much cash on a program that as neat as it looks, is for a blog that I don't use that much?

My friend, just remember that these years of suffering and studying hard are building up to that miraculous time when you come of age, and start making money that belongs to you and nobody else (well, okay, some of it belongs to Uncle Sam), and you get to spend that one orgiastic night after your first bonus check surfing the net, systematically buying up every action figure or novelty home appliance your parents dragged you away from at the mall, and upgrading your status to Double Secret Platinum Member on every site around whose bland and free fringes you once lurked. Then you will know one of the greatest pleasures of life, the joy of the Inner Child Satisfied.

My own is extremely content, although it would be more so if it could only find that Rock 'N' Roll Rooster Alarm Clock, the one that strums a guitar and sings "Wow! Hey! Yeah! Wake up! Come and dance with me!" in a tone scientifically proven to drive your mother insane, for under fifty bucks. That's the only peril, waiting so long that all your coveted goodies become "vintage"...

You've heard of the iPad. Why not compile all those reviews into a digital book? That's one way to derive income.

There is going to be great resistance from the "new economy" crowd that tried to tell us prior to the tech boom/bust that profit was the "old economy". This point of view refuses to acknowledge that there is cost to create content. Everything should be free. Charging for content is facist. (Aside: does it seem like no one knows what the word facist means anymore?)

But it is clear that a new model is needed. Reporters are dropping like flies. And as you are no doubt aware, not many publishers want to pay a columnist when there are attention staved bloggers will write for free. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the old content sources will collapse before people recognize the value of what they once provided for a modest cost to their readers. I hope that does not happen. In particular I worry about the decline of local reporting. Who is going to pay the guy (or gal) who uncovers the corrupt city hall politico?

Your model may not be successful, but I applaud you for taking a stab at it. I am as frugal as the next guy, but I know what it costs to collect and distribute information. We have been spoiled by the free ride the early web has given us. Maybe we need to somehow eliminate the false subsidy currently provided to the web and forget about the fading hope that somehow it will somehow make money someday. Let people see what free will buy when it pays its own way. I don't like it, and I don't think it will work when someone will always blink. But the current state of affairs can't continue.

To paraphrase a quote from a novel I'm reading: I'm sure capitalism will be very kind to you, Mr. Ebert. I've never found that anybody's "value-added" content was worth any money so I won't be paying for the privilege. I'll continue to read your free material on a regular basis and when that eventually shuts down, I'll just find something else to read. So far, I haven't run out of reading material yet.

Not that it matters, but I suspect Orwell would have loved the word "micropayment." It's a subscription, for the love of pete. It doesn't matter how small or large the payment is, it's still a subscription. Micropayment. Sheesh. Doubleplusungood.

Roger,

I'm in! Thrilled to be able to support one of my favorite Internet destinations. I'm also sure that the money will go somewhere awesome. If you need ideas, I suggest:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/12/the_twelve_gifts_of_christmas.html

I am not mistaken in my understanding that rogerebert.com will now be a porn site, correct?

You should absolutely sell T-shirts. $10-$15 for members, $15-$20 for non-members, which includes a membership. (Two cents: submitted.)

Keep up the brilliant work -

As someone who works with Project Gutenberg (we produce free, public-domain & creative-commons-licensed eBooks - founded in Champaign-Urbana, IL, incidentally), I work daily to keep information and ideas as free as possible for people all over the world. For many the world over, even a penny is too much. The internet breaks the barrier placed before these people, especially when books, music, newspapers and other basic technological amenities cost more and more everyday in the growing, global Us vs. Them culture.

We must keep the internet open for such people and ourselves. (Before you ask me how a poor person in India can read your stuff, please realize that 80% of the world has a cellphone even if they don't have electricity or running water. The ubiquity of telephony and cheap computing boggles the mind, in a good way!)

Like some others, I will pay as a goodwill gesture, because you're a great writer and, I believe, a genuinely good person. Furthermore, I will pay if I am assured that my payment will let others access the content for free.

You lucked out -- a drug rep bought lunch today, so you can have my lunch money.

Of course, the lovely Ms. Ashe's website may have been worth $30 million in 2001, but she sold out in 2004, and by 2006 the site was only worth $3 million when it was sold again. Her timing was brilliant but it only confirms that you can't make money if everyone is offering a similar product for free. With all respect to Mr. Ebert's entertaining and popular site, does it offer something so unique that people are willing to pay extra? The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Economist and others have attempted to get funding from subscribers for their websites with poor success. I myself subscribe to a very popular but free cycling newsletter but would not bother with its premium version simply because I can find similar information elsewhere at no cost. I am happy to look around the banner ads if that is what pays the bills.

Thanks for the history of the past. I remember back in the day where internet advertising got so crazy especially the 2000 and 2001s. You'd get paid 1 cent just for a banner display. This does not sound like much but when you get 1000+ visitors it quickly adds up fast. I thought I was doing quite well, as it paid the bills. But looking at others, it looks like I was just a little tip of the iceberg.

I've enjoyed your reviews for years (ever since I can remember, really - I'm only 23).
And I hope that you can manage to keep your site free. Like Julian above, I "joined the club so your site can stay free for everyone."
Please, KEEP WRITING!!!

~lowly science grad student from Moscow, Russia =)

Pang of nostalgia for the old compuserve days.

But good God, you complain you don't get movie ads on your site? That's a good thing--it makes you like Consumer Reports. I'm glad to pay such a small sum, Lord knows I've been hitting you up to get the skinny for, well, decades now.

Also, and I will confess this freely--I'm hoping to meet local men. The last man I dated his movie taste...well anyhow, I want to meet men who want to go to the movies with me. I signed up at match.com and it was depressing to me, all the men there are into kayaking and hiking and windsurfing and whatnot. What's a non-athletic woman to do? So having a pool of men willing to cough up five bucks to talk about movies whom I can get to know online, that's a good first start. :)

I think what's interesting about this conversation is how this whole ordeal can be, more or less, explained as a function of a free-market in action. The inability of the micro-payment strategy to gain traction has forced people to come up with other ways of adding value to consumers. Consumers are the victors here.

In the past, your reviews would be paid for, without resistance. Now, the market has put you in a position to provide more than just reviews, in order to receive the same amount of money. While this is unquestionably a bigger burden on you, the market (us, the consumers) gets more, for less.

I presume that the Ebert Club, or whatever you embrace as the "added value," will be of enough significant value to warrant my dollar. And, had you not been forced to compete in this internet-age, we as consumers never would have had access to it.

Yay, I'm a member! Only $5.29 Canadian. What a bargain.

I have most happily joined the club and impatiently waiting for my decoder ring.

As far as making any money on the Internet, the old models don't work; the new models don't work (or haven't so far); all of us in the Internet biz are scrambling to find a revolutionary model that will. So far, nothing works.

But, we soldier on cause we love it - and part of what we love is the fact that it's free. A real dilemma.

It is a big treehouse, but fun anyway. I don't miind chipping in on the experiment.

I remember when the NYT had a paid subscription for "premium" content. Didn't last too long. I didn't buy it.

I know you are not a fan of astrology and all the new agey stuff, but I am familiar with a subscription site that I think is doing okay. Planet Waves. They charge a lot more than five bucks for subscriptions but probably comp some members. There are several pieces to it, including Political Waves. Some of it is still free, some is paid.

I finally watched you and Chaz on Oprah. I know it is your beta voice, but you sound like you. And of course part of it was just you doing pre-Oscar work on tv. What is more natural than that?

Just so you know, Roger, Huffington Post makes money in large part because they *don't pay their writers*. I think you can get the point.

I've joined for a completely different reason.

It's not that I don't love your writing and want as much as I can get, but I'm very interested in seeing if this works. Journalism pundits like to say that people won't pay because they're used to getting content for free, but I've wondered all along if the case was actually that people won't pay because they just aren't that interested in what's being offered and what's being offered isn't good enough to pay for.

So you're a good test-- people clearly want what you're offering and $4.99 (or even $5) is cheap as chips.

As far as your site making money already-- no doubt it's all going to the paper.
So good luck with the club and be sure to let us know the numbers. It's been 24 hours...

I expect most people will "pay" $5 because they want to give back to you, for all you've given them, and that's the mechanism you've provided. If you provide a mechanism for them to give larger amounts, they'll use that too. I don't think it's because they want all the extra features, it's because the gift instinct remains alive and well (hooray!). Although the features sound delightful, they still "cost" attention, whether or not they cost money.

Still, outright gifts make people uncomfortable in our supposedly capitalist, "rational" economy. Making giving seem like "paying" is an effective smokescreen, so no one need admit how moved they are, nor how generous (such qualities make some people feel too vulnerable). Whatever works, I say.

Hi, I just signed up for The Ebert Club, and I think it's absolutely worth every penny. You have been supplying faithful readers, such as myself, with eloquent reviews - for free - for over a year, and I think it's only fair to give something back (though I admit - I have also bought the majority of your books).
Now, I know you must get this a lot, but I thought this would be a great chance to FINALLY overcome my intimidation and try to express my gratitude for all you have done for me. For the longest time I've wanted to post something on your blog, but how does one summarize over a decade of appreciation, a decade of faithful reading...
Ever since I was 12 (I am 26 now), you have acted as a catalyst for my love for film - your essays are literally soaked with an apparent infatuation with cinema, and even when I disagree with your review, you make valid points that are fascinating to mull over.
I write this out of the office overlooking Michigan Avenue (hint: i work at a chewing gum company). I remember, when I moved to Chicago 4 years ago, after graduating from Emerson College in Boston, the first thought that came to me was "Oh my God - Ebert lives here!!" Your reviews, essays, blog entries, commentaries have helped me deal with heavy issues, such as cancer in the family, constant transition from one place to another, and the emotional burden that comes with that...
I am Russian, but lived in Switzerland, France, England, Germany, Austria, USA, Thailand, in addition to visiting a variety of places. When you travel as much as I do, and you dont know where home is anymore, and your life consists of perpetual good-byes, you turn to the one "constant variable" that you have left - for me it has always been film and writing... and Mr. Ebert.
I take a certain pride in the fact that I internalize my emotions, try not to be too obvious and sentimental, but when i heard about what you've gone through with your cancer, I wept like a baby. In a lot of ways, i feel closer to you than to my own grandfather ("okay," you're thinking, "now this is creepy" - but I mean that in the best of ways: it's such a comfort zone, that spot in front of the computer, with suntimes.com/ebert on the screen -all issues seem minor compared to the vast and beautiful world of movies.)
I am currently stagnating in the corporate environment, marinading like a pickle in a tightly-screwed jar. I know it's awful to complain about a position that a lot of people would kill to have right now, but my heart is not in it... at all. It doesnt seem like i am going to get a green card in the current economic climate, so the past 4 years of "working for the man" have ended up totally fruitless. My dreams of conquering Hollywood are becoming dimmer by the month. Ultimately, i would love to follow your path and write reviews... I can't imagine anything better than to WRITE about FILM, AND get PAID for it (even if only a little)! I wrote and published a book of short stories in English when I was 16 (a great title for it would be "The Pretentious Ramblings of an Insecure Child"), with illustrations by a famous St. Petersburg artist. I watched and rated over 700 movies since I've come to Chicago - film is my life, and, without false modesty, I'll state that so far I haven't met anyone who could out-argue me when it comes to film discussions. That is partially thanks to you.
I started a blog recently (my friend in Austria is helping me maintain it), but it's dificult to keep knocking out reviews when you have 10-hour days... I've asked around and looked into potential opportnities, and it's impossible, isn't it - to get a job as a reviewer at some prominent publication...
But I digress. I just wanted to say thank you, Roger, you mean a lot to me, and may you stay healthy and lively and incredibly inspiring for many many years to come.
And once again, for the 2 people that read this post: I guarantee that the Ebert Club is the best $4,99 you'll ever spend. This man is a national treasure, a film reviewer, psychiatrist, philospher, great writer and, though I have never met him, an amazing friend.

Kindest Regards,
Alex S

Hi Roger, would hate to see the archive of all your old reviews not being available. However, I am from India - Paypal is not an option for us. Any other way of I could contribute ?

And completely offtopic, since you started off as a story teller and are really in the best writing form of your life, have you ever thought of writing some fiction like short stories ( if not a novel )?

I read about The Ebert Club in yesterday's Pop Candy column [which I finally caught up with today] and went directly to the sign up page.

I didn't need the pitch - I didn't even see it until after I'd pillaged my dwindling credit card limit to join up.

Good pitch, though.

I regularly read both your reviews and TechDirt, so I was pleasantly surprised when they approvingly mentioned your plan:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100303/0055538380.shtml

I'm going to pony up the fiver right after I write this. I think the idea needs some tweaking, like any new idea, but fundamentally it's sound.

For the record: I'm pretty solidly against any sort of paywall for content. There are other and better ways to go about monetizing content, and paywalls only keep information from people, while at the same time making that content less relevant.

Think of it this way. Before you put your reviews online for free, they were just stacks of paper sitting in your office. You wouldn't be making money either way, so keeping it from people helps nobody.

I do feel guilty that I read so much Ebert for free. But when I see a ROGER EBERT MOVIE COMPANION, I buy it. (Well, I did, once.) Someone else had a point --- your writing attracts readers, SunTimes gets the eyeballs, eyeballs attract advertising revenue, you get a paycheck. And a tight belt all around. And now for the cautionary tale of those fifty millionaires who wrote and signed a letter to the President, saying, "I am already a milliionaire! I shouldn't receive Social Security benefits!" and the President said, "Well, __fifty millionaires__ said they don't want Social Security benefits!" and then ruined it for everyone else.

I subscribed without even a moment's hesitation. If the quality is there (and it obviously is) then it's worth supporting. $4.99 isn't much to ask, anyway. Plus, I wanted to get in before the price went up to $5. ;)

I've never understood why newspapers and other purveyors of content give away their product for free online. It's like they're all afraid that if the other guy does it but not them, then somehow they will be missing out on something. But missing out on what?

And yet, I certainly appreciate that so much is available online for free. I agree with those who say that if it was all under lock and key, few people would subscribe to anything, each person's internet would shrink to the size of dime, and I'll bet most sites would make much less than they do now through advertising.

I think your Value Added idea is a good solution. And I agree with others who say there are other Values that you could sell. I like the t-shirt idea. My 10th Annual EbertFest magnet got a bit crumpled on the return trip to Nebraska and I could sure use another one of those. Pens would be awesome. So would playing cards. What about something movie related? As a kid I would save ticket stubs and newspaper ads for the movies I'd see -- how about Roger's Little Movie Scrapbook? I e-mailed you (via the Movie Answerman) to suggest offering signed copies of your books.

And, I'll tell you -- I sure as hell miss Gene. I don't know if there's any way legally you could sell pictures/posters of you and Gene, but that would really make me happy. (There are always photos of you two on Ebay, but I've always suspected they are low-quality copies and have stayed away.)

The problem with most of these ideas (except for the signed books) is that it takes money to make money. Products must be manufactured before they can be sold, and if they don't sell as well as you thought they would you're up a creek. But maybe one will stand out as being a sure-thing and you can start with that.

Good luck on the new show you've been pitching. I look forward to hearing more details.

P.S. Please ask your web guru to left-justify these reader comments. Large blocks of centered text are hard to read.

Hi Roger,

I'm a student in a masters program for Science and Information Technology. Your article fit in perfectly for an assignment I have in the Social Constructs of Information class, so thank you.

What I wanted to share was that I had to correct my Read and React paper so I didn't call you Roger, but rather Ebert, since last names are more scholarly. My natural tendency thinks of you as Roger, a friend I've been reading and viewing for years. Keep up the good work and thanks again.

you want me to believe that anyone with spectacular boobs will make money on the internet?

get atta here!

Most internet content is monetized by affiliate sales (which you are currently doing via the links to amazon) and ads (which you are also using). That is a lot of space dedicated to marketing. You also have popups, which is very aggressive marketing (for a non-porn site).
I always wondered why you didnt have your own website. Money is being made, it is just not going to you.
Of course subscription models can be used but most customers don't like them.
Check out Cuban or Seth Godin for more on this subject.

Ebert: If anybody is making money, it's not me.

Mr. Ebert,

I'm an indie videomaker/animator/online personality who wishes to remain anonymous, but I'm deadly curious to see where this conversation goes.

I originally attempted to offer my short three-minute animated clips through a micropayment system back in 2004. Back then it took me three days of nonstop digital animating to create each clip/episode. I decided to start charging people 50-cents per episode. The way I figured it, if I attracted half a million viewers, I could make a nice little profit. After a month of offering a new episode each week, I attracted about 1,000 unique visitors on a daily basis to watch "preview clips". Only 100 of those visitors wanted to pay the 50-cents to see the full clips.

At the end of that month, I was handed a very huge bill by my web hosting company. As a student I could barely afford their $20/month hosting package. How the f*** was I gonna pay a $1000 overusage bill? It's not like I had a choice. I worked extra at the sushi joint and paid the damn thing off.

So much for micropayments.

I didn't give up, however. Two months later, I decided to go with a "tip jar." I changed hosting companies (ADDR) who wouldn't charge me overusage fees and promised unlimited bandwidth. Boy did I learn my lesson. Not only was the viewing speed horrendous, but after a certain amount of used bandwidth they actually shut down my website. Still, I managed to make $150 or so through the tip jar (while the site was up). I paid the company $25 that month, so I turned a sort-of profit. ^_^

I kept this up for a year, lol. My site would be up for two weeks, then shut down for the rest of the month. Some "tip jar" cash trickled in and I kept animating. I remember eating alot of ramen, but whatever.

So 2006 rolled around. I decided I'd try adverts while continuing to produce a new video clip each week. At this point I was on my fifth webhost (1&1, Dreamhost, etc.), and suffering the same site slowdowns plus site downtime after a certain usage of monthly-bandwidth. I tried Adsense and Adbrite and I kept the tip jar. After a couple months, I made $10 from the jar and $100 from the ad revenue (keep in mind my site would be up for two weeks then suspended the rest of the month). This continued for about a year until the hosting company decided I should be charged an ongoing premium because I was using up their streaming bandwidth.

I couldn't afford what they were asking for.

So I took a long break and lurked sites like Digital Point, basically doing more research about profiting online.

During the latter half of 2007, I realized I would need to find a better way to host my videos. I could put them up (hosted freely) on the Internet Archive, but embedding was tricky at the time. And if you couldn't properly embed, then you wouldn't get the visitor hits.

What was happening was this: a visitor stumbled across my site and saw the video link. He'd see the video and liked what he saw. So he'd bookmark the Internet Archive page and not my own site. This caused a sharp drop in overall weekly visitors.

I considered putting my content up on Youtube, but decided against it; I'd get jack-squat for years, possibly never being accepted into their "partnered" sites (which I'd heard pay well through in-video ads). I needed to find a place to host my videos. More importantly, I needed them to be as exclusive as possible to my site domain.

So I ran across Vimeo. Purchasing one of their "pro" accounts ($50 a year, true unlimited bandwidth), I gained the ability to not only upload my videos, but I could also opt for the video to ONLY appear on my domain via embedding. OMG, if I could restrict my video to my domain only, then I'd get 100% of the traffic. And unlimited bandwidth at that! (Vimeo's TOS made it clear they would only allow independent non-commercial content to be hosted on their site. Since over 70% of their videos ultimately end up being embedded on blogs that ran adsense, I figured I was free and clear.)

Web-hosting shouldn't be a problem since I wouldn't be streaming video. I could go with some random company's $30/month package.

After three months, I made $5000 from Google's ads. I never made that much money in three months, like, EVER. I got rid of the tip jar since it brought nothing in during that time.

Vimeo got wind of it and suspended my account. They didn't exactly explain how I violated their terms of service, but whatever. Alot of Vimeo users made a big deal about it. I didn't argue. I suddenly had this inner-assurance that my silly little stick-figure animations could make a profit if I kept at it.

In 2008, I somehow let my friends talk me into starting up a subscription service. I was convinced that I could convert the audience I already amassed into a monthly-paying fanbase. I don't know what I was thinking; it should have been clearly obvious that original content works best when teamed with an ad-revenue model. Meh, whatever. I dropped a grand on proper video hosting and coded the members-only website myself. I started subs at $5/month, which allowed access to a weekly comic strip and longer videos. After a month, with my unique visitors hovering around 2,000 a day, I only got 30 subscribers. After three months, only 10 subscribers remained with the service. Money got tight again. I was cut from my sushi job and defaulted on my student loans. This wasn't working out.

By the end of 2008, I couldn't even afford to pay the monthly hosting fee.

So I bit the bullet and just uploaded all of my original content to Youtube. I redirected all the site hits to the Youtube page and crossed my fingers. The hits were there alright. My youtube profile page roughly inherited double the unique hits I recieved on a weekly basis. My hopes depended entirely on being accepted as a Youtube partner and tasting some of that ad-revenue.

In the Summer of 2009 I got my partner status. And I was beginning to receive profits from the ads that were being served in my videos. Youtube Partner adsense profits are supposed to be a hush-hush thing, but screw it. I don't need for people to know who I am and I don't need to plug my videos. This thread is important to me. It speaks to the journey Ive been on as someone trying to turn a profit on my own original creative work. I make $8,000 on a monthly basis (purely from the uploading of my silly videos onto YT). And I'm not one of their top "stars", either.

Maybe deep down I'm scared that YT might find out who I am, but screw it. I've been low before and I'll probably be back there soon enough, but I'll just claw my way to the top again.

Maybe this has nothing to do with what you wrote about, Mr. Ebert. But I assume your article wasn't completely focused on gauging whether or not your subscription fee would work. I'd like to think your article (and this talkback) is also aimed at helping those individuals struggling to make a profit on this here interweb.
-"Strife"

Dear Roger
I don't know if it will work,but I subscribed.
Thank you for everything and best regards from Croatia!

If you need money, I'd donate money for you. I appreciate the content I receive from you, and I wouldn't mind showing it with cash.

But I'm not interested in paying to receive something other people don't get. I would donate, if you had a donation button, out of respect and appreciation of the quality content you provide for free. I've never been attracted to "exclusive content." Leaving poorer people out has never seemed right to me. The fact that you provide this content for free, so that anyone with an internet connection or a library can get it, is what I respect most about your content. Can I sponsor other people to join the Ebert Club? Would you ever consider just asking for a certain dollar figure a month from those who can afford to give, and just providing the extra content to everyone, regardless of their wealth?

Of course, if you actually do ever start offering decoder rings, forget about it. I would pay to exclusively join a club with special decoder rings any time.

Roger, Roger, Roger...you should have wrote another 'Valley of Vixens' flick back then and used Danni Ashe. She would have been perfect, you would have been richer, and good ol Russ would have been very proud!

BTW, I have the utmost appreciation and respect for you and will gladly to join your club!

being a musician I've also seen a decline in income because of the internet. however there are still people who love an album as an object, a thing. so they'll spend some money just to own that thing in the special way that you can't own something online. it's the same deal for a writer: you can write a book. someone will buy it because they like books (a sentiment I'm sure you understand very well). of course there are not enough people buying books but how is that going to change when everyone is putting everything up on the internet? not that I expect a big uprising of bookworms but I think that more good books would create more good book readers. you have such a great prose style and with your condition you're probably the most pure writer out there today!

I was happy to join. Like others above, I'm less interested in the additional content, and mainly pleased to help support a website (and a writer) I enjoy so much.

All of the paradigms for commerce and intellectual property are being reinvented, and it's confusing to us old-timers. As a friend who runs a record store lamented, "People used to expect to watch TV for free and to pay for musical recordings; now it's the other way around." I love having so many wonderful resources available online for free, and I'm delighted that we all have access to Roger's archives with a few keystrokes....but I'm also troubled by how writers, musicians, and journalists will make a living when their work is available at no charge.

The public radio model may be a useful one. I've hosted a folk music show for our local public radio station for 25 years, so I'm used to convincing my listeners that they should voluntarily donate money to support programming that they can easily enjoy for free. I'm delighted that everybody can listen to our station (even online) without having to pay for it, and that's what the vast majority of public broadcasting fans do, but I'm so grateful that many people *are* willing and able to become members. Some of them get a tote bag or a T-shirt or get invited to special events, but mostly they support public radio simply because they enjoy it and want to help ensure that it will continue.

Similarly, I faithfully download each week's podcast of "This American Life" and I'm glad that it's free, but when Ira Glass makes his annual pitch for donations to help WBEZ pay for the bandwidth, I'm more than happy to pay my share.

So I'm delighted to join the Ebert Club (and would be happy to kick in more than $4.99) just to show my appreciation and support of Roger's body of work, past, present, and long into the future.

Dear Roger,
I think you and Gene had the right idea with micro-payments. The problem is, nobody has yet put together a simple, easy method to actually make these micro-payments.
Apple and Amazon have great systems for buying music, DVDs and books. They have my credit card info, and with a click or two I can buy what I want. Why can't I use a similar method to view one of your blog entries?
The question is, what's a fair price? Now don't take this the wrong way, but I think pennies is the right answer. :)
I already pay quite a bit for my internet connection and for the computer hardware. And your costs, compared with dead tree publications, are quite low. If there was a simple Amazon-style one-click payment method, and if the price was, say, a nickel, I'm sure you'd do well. You could also still include ads to increase your revenue.
As for those dead tree publications, I think there should be a small surcharge on ISP bills and computers, and this money could be redistributed to newspapers and newsmagazines. Newspapers fulfill a crucial role in a democratic society, spurring debate, and acting as a watchdog on powerful interests. Surely we cannot afford to allow the continued erosion of these important institutions.
Bear in mind, I'm a Canadian, and as you know, we don't share our American neighbours' fears about socialist ideas such as the one I've proposed. But when I compare my CBC news (publicly funded) with your for-profit nightly news and cable news stations, I can't help but conclude that a "socialist" approach is preferable. Your great nation would also do well to have a look at our public financing of elections, to say nothing of health care!
By the way, I have watched you on At the Movies since I was a teenager in the 80's. It was because of you and Gene that I first began to seek out the smaller "art house" movies to supplement my diet of Hollywood blockbusters. Thanks to you, I discovered classics such as A Room With A View, My Life as a Dog, and Pelle the Conqueror. Because of you, I sought out the work of other critics, such as the great Pauline Kael. Now I teach film to high school kids! It's quite a program - we even have a Red One HD camera! One last plug for socialism - even in our poorer parts of town, thanks to a quite equitable system of school financing, public schools have great art and music programs!
Ha, funny how this note turned into such a paean to socialism! I guess all these months of watching your country's struggles with health care has caused these thoughts and feelings to build up, and this was my first opportunity to express them to an American. I truly do love and admire your country, and it is painful to witness what has been going on for the past eight years.

I understand your concern but it whole heartedly comes from YOUR GENERATION. As a Gen-X individual, I'd say who cares. I'm not going to pay, so I'll just use a search engine to find my info elsewhere. Gen-Y would tell me that they don't care what you or anyone else their dads age says, they'd rather be connected to their friends and hear what they are saying about a movie.
I believe newspapers are looking at the problem wrong. Why do they need to be online? If so many people quit buying paper copy, why did they quit? What's the real problem? I'd say there is NO VALUE in a newspaper. I can say I haven't had a paper subscription in over 14 years.

Think of it this way (I know I do), It's like being able to go to big party and everyone talking. I really want to find the people I want to listen to and talk with. If I find that they're in a private room that I have to pay to get into (behind a firewall) then I'm really going to question the value. I'm prone to just go find another conversation about the same topic and socialize there. If someone else is willing to pay for your private party...more power to you. Just provide more value than what you charge. Talk to Steve Jobs and Apple about that.
Overall, Someone will always be willing to share their stories for free and I'm willing to listen.

Ebert: Before long YOUR GENERATION will become MY GENERATION, and I am sure YOU will be happy to WORK FOR FREE.

Please continue to visit this entirely free site.

Mr. Ebert,

For all that you have given us, I can not, for one second, begrudge you $5. Without your reviews, and candid conversation, what would I read for style tips and fun? After all this time, $5 seems like a deal to me.

Interesting column until it became a money grab. As best as I can tell your web site is maintained by the Sun Times. I suspect your column/presence draws more traffic to the Sun Times site than any other feature. That makes the owner of your site--the Sun Times, lots of money.

That the Sun Times pays you handsomely is in LARGE part based on your web site's popularity. I really doubt your pay would be the same for a local Chicago column.

Seems to me you have a contract issue with the owner of your web site.

Oh and the web seems to be doing just fine on content despite the your dire predictions. For years the newspaper industry enjoyed monopoly status in so many cities and made profits unfettered by competition. In my city--St. Louis--the two dailies entered into an antitrust exemption agreement and split their monopoly profits.

What a great ironic twist that competition and the free market have levelled the playing field. What you are addressing Roger are the death throes of a dying dinosuar--newspapers. The web is doing just fine thank you. And if you go behind a paywall you will become obsolete. Welcome to the free market.

For a couple of paragraphs, I was thinking you were going to focus on porn. This venture may be more profitable, although the publicity you'd generate from that would be considerably greater.

What would Russ Meyer do?

Roger, if you own and control your rights you can keep them on the web as long as you like. Just put it in your contracts in the future. Your old contracts surely don't convey these rights. There is no meeting of the minds as to this exploitation, nor is there any money to be extracted from old clips anyway, apart from ad revenue. Consult your lawyer. The value you are selling is temporal and your contracts should reflect that. --A reader beginning with the Chicago Reader, when I was an undergrad at U of C in the early 70s...

I'm in. You've earned it.

I feel *super* proud to be part of this - it was a no-brainer to do. Thanks for taking us along for this part of the ride - can't wait to see what lies ahead. Much love.

Wow; you've started your very own Ambassador's Club! Will there be special benefits for longtime members? Platinum cards in the mail? Secret decoder rings? Marie's an excellent choice. I'll be joining up as soon as I can get some things together. Oh, if there's a way that you could post an audio file of you waxing rhapsodic about Ingrid Bergman's lips with your new voice...

I think we're missing the opportunity for Roger's Hard Drive, but best of luck with The Club.

I started reading your website when I was a medical student in India. I would read a review or two on your site without really knowing who you were (no Siskel and Ebert in India). And let me just say that neither the Mexican kid doing research nor the 1999 me would have paid to read the reviews, because we would not have known their value. And it would have undoubtedly been our loss, but we were young and stupid and would not have cared. So for all the Indian medical students who were introduced to The Seven Samurai by you and for all the potential Mexican research kids, please never charge for your reviews.

But I am older now and will gladly pay my $4.99 just to read your blog.

It appears that, at first glance, you are targeting current *subscribers* - that is, those who will pay because they already read you religiously. Perhaps that is the point, but is this plan designed to attract new traffic, or simply capitalize on existing traffic? Coz the former is somewhat limited, and the gold is in the latter. I do not see how you will attract new traffic to pay, with the current roster of extras.

I don't usually post questions or comments on the internet, but you are a truly amazing person and I respect you enormously. My dad has always said of you, "Ebert likes movies." Which makes your reviews pleasant to read, not elitist and closer to my taste than any other reviewer I (occasionally) read. Both of my parents were public school teachers/administrators and I grew up appreciating the written word. When the internet came about and it was all free, I was amazed. So while I'm on a very "fixed income" (as we say about my retired parents) I'd happily have paid $10 or even $20 for a site I use multiple times an evening, while watching tv and deciding what to see in the theater. I don't care if I get any "value added." You're worth it.

Is there a way to set it up to pay more than the $4.99 for the many who seem willing? That might be a great opportunity. Just a thought.

Great idea to keep things running. Once I have money again I'll be sending $5 to join, but first I need to ebay some stuff to get several dvds/B-Rs that are going OOP from Criterion soon.

Re: your twitter post (since I don't have an account to reply with):
[quote]I dunno know what it is, but I want me some. http://j.mp/c37VJs[/quote]

Well, it's pretty obvious that Gatsby is selling haircare products for men in Japan - more obvious if you google their website, even without basic knowledge of reading katakana & hiragana.
The song they're singing in the commercial: "Shiawase nara te wo tatakou" is (rather obviously) a Japanese version of 'If you're happy and you know it clap your hands'. When I worked as a waiter at a Japanese restaurant serving teppanyaki, this was our staff song taking place of 'Happy B-day to you', etc., which we would have to sing to customers dining there on special occasions. Luckily, it's a much much easier song to memorize than any Japanese pop song I ever risked embarrassment to sing for karaoke at a convention back in my anime days (Flyte Tyme, Grateful Days, m-flo songs, et al).

I found a copy of the lyrics online:
http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+27551

If you think Japanese commercials are crazy, you should see some of their music videos.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but how about expanding the store within the website. I know a lot of websites live off of the apparel and other items listed. I think I'm not the only one that would buy a "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" T-shirt.

Dear Roger,

Of course I joined. Hell Roger, if you asked I would have forked over all the money I had in my wallet: a crisp $20 bill.

Here's my 2 cents, FOC

(Juliette Forrest: What does "Foc" mean?
Rigby Reardon: It's a slang word. When a man and a woman are in love, the man puts his...
Juliette Forrest: No, no. Here: "F. O. C.")

I've said it once or twice, but I'll say it again. You should have a section on your website that will allow us, your friends, to create the ultimate shot by shot experience. I'd like to start with 2001 and I will be there with my thoughts of every frame as soon as you let it rip.

Until then, I remain your constant reader.

P.S. I pay about $40 a year for a subscription to the New Yorker. If you need money, let me know. You are worth a hell of a lot more than the $4.99 I paid. We all love you, Roger. If you want a town coming together to save George Bailey moment, just say so. We've all got your back.

Roger, bravo and congratulations!

It's a big deal to move to sell directly to your readers -- and let them support you in turn. There's little more amazing in the micro-business world than finding out how happy people can be to pay you directly for just, basically, being yourself, and doing what you are driven to do.

What it really comes down to is NOT that "People won't pay for stuff on the internet." That is the easy explanation, the common sense explanation, and like lots of common sense (put butter on burns, y'know!), it's totally wrong.

People pay for LOTS of things on the internet. In the past 14 months, I myself made over $35,000 on a self-published ebook about a computer topic (JavaScript!) - and no, it wasn't about how to make money on the internet, porn or hacking. And I'm not famous. I know people who make a good living off selling their own content about gardening, and crafts, and all sorts of other completely up-and-up things.

The fact is that the vast majority of "people on the internet" don't understand how to create and package content in a way that sells.

I've spent a long time learning how to do just that -- in a way that leaves people feeling incredibly happy for having bought it -- and honest to god, I would love to give you some pointers. For absolutely free, regardless of how douchey those words make me sound.

Because, and I mean this in the most respectful way possible - I respect you GREATLY - your offering and your pitch for it could use a little bit of help. No biggie, nobody teaches this stuff, this is your first go, and this is the internet, the best place to evolve a business.

Actually, I'm positive that lots of people will sign up just because they love your writing, it's given them so much pleasure over the years, and they want to give back. That's the beauty of being a giver like yourself. Human nature dictates that we should want to give back.

But I know how much you could *help* people, make a bigger impact, while also earning a direct living. The best of both worlds.

And like I said, I would love to give you just a few pointers. Please allow me.

I, too, want to give back, and honestly, $5 is not enough. I just spent $5 on a sandwich. The sandwich didn't inspire me to be a better person. The sandwich didn't make me feel, even for a second, that feeling that maybe there's hope for humanity after all. The sandwich didn't help me order tickets for Alice in Wonderland, confident that I wouldn't have my heart broken. The sandwich lasted for all of about 3 minutes and honestly, it was a bit soggy.

You, on the other hand… are worth much more to me than a sandwich.

Hello Mr. Ebert, everyone. I am a long time reader first time commenter and I found this post quite interesting. You see, I'm what you may call a "Lifelong Netizen"; I've essentially grown up with the internet and the "cultures" it has spawned. Not to claim any special privilege, but what Roger Ebert has suggested is already being nearly realized as an idea that is very exciting.

Peter Sunde (of thepiratebay.org fame) may have thought of a way to get around the "everything can't be free" trap; he calls it flattr http://flattr.com/beta/ and I encourage everyone to learn about it. Basically they propose a "tip jar" style for websites: people "flattr" your content, thus transferring some money you have in your flattr account to whomevers content you viewed. Anything from blog posts to youtube videos can be "flattred". Essentially making being an artist or journalist online a financially viable option.

I'm sure it would be phenomenal for the team at flattr to receive support from Roger Ebert while they are still only in beta.

Hello Mr. Ebert, everyone. I am a long time reader first time commenter and I found this post quite interesting. You see, I'm what you may call a "Lifelong Netizen"; I've essentially grown up with the internet and the "cultures" it has spawned. Not to claim any special privilege, but what Roger Ebert has suggested is already being realized as an idea that is very exciting.

Peter Sunde (of thepiratebay.org fame) may have thought of a way to get around the "everything can't be free" trap; he calls it flattr http://flattr.com/beta/ and I encourage everyone to learn about it. Basically they propose a "tip jar" style for websites: people "flattr" your content, thus transferring some money you have in your flattr account to whomevers content you viewed. Anything from blog posts to youtube videos can be "flattred". Essentially making being an artist or journalist online a financially viable option.

I'm sure it would be phenomenal for the team at flattr to receive support from Roger Ebert while they are still only in beta.

I'm in. Best value for $4.99 I'll have paid all week.

Easiest five bucks I've ever spent. After 25+ years of enjoying your thoughtful commentary and analysis, choosing to cough up a five-spot to continue enjoying your work is almost laughably easy. Frankly, you should be asking for $10: I think you'd get it from the vast majority of your readers in a heartbeat.

Hi Roger:

So great to see you and hear your voice again on television.

For less than the cost of a hamburger meal, a magazine, a paperback or a single film screening, the chance to support my favourite blog with a person I've admired and respected for many many years...a no brainer.

Wishing you all the best...there is no shortage of love and appreciation for you and your thoughts.

"For a little love, I would go to the edge of the world bareheaded and barefooted." From the film Empties ..quoting Czech author Jaroslav Vrchlicky.

Translation of a larger part of the passage from his novel...

For a bit of love, I would go to the end of the world,
I would go bareheaded and I would go barefoot,
I would go through the ice - but with eternal May in my soul,
I would go through the storm - but would hear blackbirds singing,
I would go into the wilderness – and would have of pearls or dew in the heart
For a bit of love, I would go to the end of the world,
as one who sings begging at the door.

Imagine if you could combine pornography with movie reviews. You could be "The Naked Critic", or "The Angry Naked Movie Nerd". Given that you're currently unable to speak, you would have an excellent justification for hiring an avatar to read our your reviews - a young, female avatar with no qualms about delivering the reviews in unusual locations and states of undress.

Heck, you used to hang out with Russ Meyer. His address book must still be around somewhere. Some of the actresses he hired have daughters, and looks are genetic. You'd have no trouble attracting the cast of e.g. Suicidegirls or one of the edgier "burlesque" sites.

Roger Ebert's words coming out of the mouth of a young semi-naked woman = sure-fire money spinner. Or hideously misguided atrocity. But where there is no risk there is no reward.

Alternatively you could just review porn. There are porn review sites on the internet, but I want to hear Roger Ebert's opinion on porn. Roger Ebert and Kevin Smith together, "Smith and Ebert's Smut Shack", there's a name for you.

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but the very first part of the first sentence of this blog entry is "Nobody on the web is has figured out how to make any money"

I think you need to delete the "is"

I will buy it. The Web Report better be good though!

anthony m. asked "...can one assume that when times 'turn around' the site would revert to being free again? I suspect not."

Unfortunately, print medias' problems predated the current economic mess, and I'm sure that those problems will continue when the rest of the economy turns around. Hell, I don't care. I remember watching "At the Movies" on WTTW thirt-five years ago. If my $5 goes straight into the Ebert Retirement Fund, it's still a good deal for the value received.

It would be better if subscribers could click a credit card payment link, with the Paypal link separated. Everyone doesn't love Paypal.

Ebert: Working on that.

I happily signed up. Reading your blog entries and movie reviews has been an excellent waste of what should have been otherwise productive time. I would hate to lose that, or know others have, simply because I blew 4.99 on some underwhelming fast food lunch. Additionally it satisfies a long desire to belong to a club of discerning individuals.

Out of curiosity, is there any chance that Ebertfest will be moved forward one week? I have been waiting for the past five years to go but the same conflict on my schedule that I participate in annually keeps showing up the weekend of Ebertfest. I want to get down there and meet you before the years catch up with either of us. Or alternatively, do you think you'll do a meet and greet for club members in Chicago at the Film Festival this year?

Lots of folks with lots to say.

I've signed up because I think that Ebert is a smart guy with a finely tuned sense of the absurd. I'm also thinking that somehow, some way , this is going to get me a date with Danni.

Courtney Love was once quoted as saying she is the only person in the world making money off of the internet.

Do with that information what you will. ; )

This is the "age-old" battle of building websites. I own a consulting company and this issue is the NUMBER 1 problem every customer I've met brings up in our first sit-down. Whether they are selling goods or content, everyone is trying to grapple with this problem. There is no silver bullet here. Of course the answer is "it depends" but there is an approach that I have seen work consistently.

There is far too much here to go into in this comment space and I would be happy (free of charge) to spend some time on the phone with your team or over email to help you in any way I can (God knows I’ve read your reviews for free since I was a little kid and owe you). But here are a couple of quick thoughts:

Seriously consider adding “social” features to your site. Online chat and forums are great but honestly, they are old news. You have all of this great content, but your site is really not sticky. I have to be the one to come back. Nothing is pulling me there beyond the chance to read a new review. This is one reason that sites like AICN are able to become less of a review site and more of a “community” and even their site is showing its age in terms of technology.

Look at what is working and sell your assets. You have tangible products as well as your content. My hunch is that you have much better margins when you sell a book than when you show a web ad on a review. Your site and content needs to be designed (in terms of layout, etc.) to funnel viewers into buyers/subscribers.
I could go on. Seriously, I am willing to help. My email is attached.

I'm in. Not crazy about using paypal, but you're worth it. In fact, I can't think of any purchasing decisions requiring less deliberation. Confused about how I access the content available to me as a Ebertclub member.

Obviously, there's a fair chorus here saying that the added content you suggest for club members is not a reason to pay $5, but that the free content is worth the fin, anyway. I agree. Some suggestions of alternative "Paywall Protected" content:
-Movie Answer Man Questions (asking them, not reading the answers); easily worth $5.
-Annual Oscar predictions column (tricky sell with your editor, but a real leg up for members with their office betting pools)
-Prize raffle for Ebert Club: Be Roger's Voice at Ebertfest(too much? I hope I'm not out of line; great prize, though!)

Think along those lines - content free to readers, PARTICIPATION costs money.

The following message comes to you from possibly the last living American of my generation who has never bought anything on credit:

As indicated above, I don't have any credit cards.
I buy things in person with cash.
I buy things by mail with personal checks.
I buy things on the 'net with my ATM card, which is a VISA debit card.
Lately, this last has been running afoul of systems which do not honor it (don't ask why - I understand none of this).
Please clarify and advise.
Thanx in advance.

I agree with previous posters that you need a better ad sales team, and maybe more ad space on your website(possibly with an interstitial ad between reviews (look at Salon.com's methods)). Besides mainstream and independent film ad buyers, there would probably be other companies interested in buying ads based on your view count.

Though I'm not personally interested in the small value-add you've presented for the Ebert Club membership, I will still donate $5 to keep the free reviews coming. Please think about investing those funds to hire an experienced internet ad sales manager, who can help bring in advertisers to your site, so that you can have a more reliable stream of revenue it.

Wishing you all the best,
Albert

For all the work you are doing online, I think a humble tip jar is appropriate. Count me in!

There are so many comments, i doubt you will ever read this, but here's my two cents (and the summary of a book i should write):

for a guy that spent his life around publishing, you sure do not seem to learned much about the business side of publishing. You have an envious product that could turn a handsome profit strictly by running ads, but apparently you don't know how to translate eyeballs (target demographics) into ad revenue. Find yourself a new media ad manager and he or she will make your site lucrative.

Target demographics drove the rise of magazine publishing. There is nothing new about the web from a publishing business perspective. For a hundred years, magazines have been selling targeted readership to advertisers and have profited enormously from doing so. Publishers of general interest magazines never have relied on subscriptions to pay the bills. The only change is that people are viewing web pages instead of magazine pages, so the print business is failing. The business model is not changing, only the marketplace and distribution model is changing. The problems of Jeremy Halbreich or whoever runs your organization is that they don't know how to transition to a new marketplace.

The cool thing about the web is, it is enormously cheaper to operate a web site and deliver content to readers than is magazine publishing. The downside is, the competition for eyeballs is enormous. So, don't complain about the web, but rather, learn about the magazine publishing business and translate the business principles to your website.

www.dooce.com makes tens of millions a year in ad revenue --and its nothing more than a blog. Your brand and content cache (roger ebert) is far more impressive. What I guess you don't get is that proctor and gamble would be interested in your demographics.

One final comment: why are you complaining in the first place? You must be a multi-millionaire from your books sales alone, why not just give the content on this site away to your readership as the act of a benevolent benefactor (be a medici to new media). You are building a legacy, why risk the scrooge factor?

Ebert: The Sun-Times ad staff is burdened by layoffs and overwork. I'm not supposed to be the guy who knows this stuff. This was just my little idea. But thanks.

I'm in, with pleasure. I've been reading your reviews for so many years - and waited with concern through that desolate period when you weren't able to write. It has been a joy to have access again to your smart, literate, thoughtful reviews, as well as to this blog.

Thanks, Roger!

Carol

Five bucks? Paypal link?

No brainer. Compulsive purchase complete.

I joined the Club, but I totally agree with Jeff about the tip jar. I support musicians and writers I enjoy and I'd certainly support the website (more than once!) Like TR, I type in Ebert [movie name] before I watch... well... anything.

I'm in. Honestly, I would prefer if there were not club-only content. I have enjoyed reading your words and would get less joy knowing that some of your words were only for some. I also wonder if dividing your words and thoughts into two realms might not be counter-productive to your writing style.

All that said, I do not mind paying. My best friend refers to your Friday reminders of movie reviews as little happyness pills in his inbox. I agree. I always look forward to your posts and they make my day better.

So, I will sign up when I am reunited with my wallet (no issues, just left it in the car and am waiting for it to return).

Freedom to the people.

Ebert: The site and blog remain free. This is an experiment to try to raise a little money...

I signed up!

Here's an idea for splitting off the content. All your past and present reviews are free (as it currently is), but any in depth spoiler-filled conversations be part of the club. I assume a no-holds-barred discussion on the film Antichrist would be widely read... by those who've seen the film.

A thought.

Jesus, Roger. I'd send you $5 a year just to send you $5 a year.

Although I love your blog, adore your writing, I'm sure you make lots more money than I do, Mr. Ebert.

If you went behind a paywall, I would miss you, but I miss lots of things these days.

Ebert: I have no plans ro go behind a paywall.

Do you read Cory Doctorow? He is on boingboing.net.

If you haven't read him, I'd love to recommend Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. In this book, money is obsolete and you pay for everything with Whuffies, which is your Internet reputation. All of his books are thought-provoking, but this one really made my brain zing. I think some folks might find it relevant.

The assumption that a given person will pay for content that he formerly received for free rests on two premises: 1. That he received value (as he perceived it) equal to or greater than the price that he will now be paying and 2. That he does not have access to a "substitute good" that will provide him that same value for an equal or smaller price.

The first premise seems to be defensible; after all, the $4.99 Roger will charge is roughly equivalent to the price of a news magazine, which many persons still buy and presumably peruse for about as long a time as a person would peruse Roger's reviews in a year. The second premise is more problematic. Given that there are literally thousands of web and print-based movie reviewers out there, some of which are quite good, does Roger offer a unique enough perspective to make people pay to read him? (The web content is free, and most print reviewers' content is essentially free, since it is in newspapers that readers have already purchased for some other reason.)

Roger's writing is quite good. His movie reviews are usually reliable, though he has a distressing tendency to overvalue French films where three people, all of whom are lovers, sit around a kitchen table, smoking and wearing morose expressions, until one of them says slowly, "Life is (merde)". The end. Roger's politics are extremist, but fortunately, he doesn't let them contaminate his reviews. Not much, anyway. So would I pay for this product? Probably not, simply because reading Roger's reviews constitutes, for me at least, entertainment, not a reliable guide to whether or not I should shell out $9.50 at the local multiplex. And since I can find so much free entertainment on the web (the "substitute good"), I'm not likely to want to pay even that nominal sum. However, I there might be several hundred people who will. Enough to make the whole exercise worthwhile, anyway.

I just spent $150 bucks at Hollywood video stores that are closing (including some candy) because the movies are 3 for $10. They were $4.99 each when they were first closing and I spent my first $60 dollars). Some of those movies are probably a bit iffy (horror movies, although mostly korean horror movies or thrillers), and I'm probably going to go back and just keep buying more movies until they close this sunday; so I'm glad to pay the $5 dollars here and am also looking forward to more Hollywood Video stores closing, so I can come and clean them out.

Hi Roger,

To me in many ways you are like Ray Bradbury. If Ray was to ask for $5 to keep his books available to all on the shelves of used bookstores...or if used bookstores for that matter needed $5 to stay open...I would donate it and ask how else I could help.

So I have donated and I'm asking.

There are plenty of ways to make money on the internet, the key is doing so without risking your audience. As an experiment, I have yet to hear someone of your public stature propose such a notion. As the Managing Editor of a Internet marketing focused news blog we daily cover news stories about brands trying experiments, like Dell's outlet sales on Twitter. I would be curious as to its outcome of this experiment if you'd like to share it with my audience.

Thank you for asking us to help. I'm glad in some small way we can.

Angel

Those of us who are not strapped for cash should be altruistic and contribute $5 or more annually. After all, what's the current price of a coffee drink at Starbucks? Feel good about having a concrete way to say thank you to Roger for providing access to his reviews all these years!

Roger,

I'm in.

$5.00 would have fed me all day including beer during the old days at the Capitol.

Glad to help.

Mike

A few years ago, you published an essay on this topic (referring to micropayments). I've looked for that again and could not find it. So thanks for restating much of what that initial essay said.