Mobile Industry Review - a quality product but will people pay?

How much would you pay to read your favourite blog? Chances are it wouldn’t be much. Blogs add value to our lives but few are essential reading. Chances are though, if you really liked a blog you’d pay a small amount – maybe £5 per month? That’s £60 (82 USD) per year.

Now, how about if your favourite blog said that as of two weeks’ time it would be charging £12,000 (16500 USD) per year? Popular UK-based blog Mobile Industry Review stunned its readership today by announcing it was doing just that.

In a global economic downturn the move might sound like madness, but there is some method in there too.  The blog was started in 2006, initially under the name SMS Text News, by entrepreneur and mobile enthusiast Ewan MacLeod. In the past three years it has grown to serve a reported 250,000 unique visitors per month. Mobile Industry Review is certainly no average blog. Beyond news and analysis of the UK mobile industry, high quality HD video reports and some of the most informed and entertaining ranting (in a good way) in the industry all form part of the mix that keeps its visitors coming back.

Running a site like this can’t be easy. Few people have the time, money and resources to run a site like MIR full time off their own back like Ewan has. Several small blogging operations have sold out to bigger corporations over the years; Paid Content was bought by The Guardian Media Group last year for example. In MIR’s case an un-named company has bought the blog and is turning into a private resource aimed squarely at corporate subscribers.

Will corporations pay £12,000? They can get the news elsewhere so the value is in the opinions and videos the site offers. In addition Ewan is promising “Exclusive video research with end-users of mobile technologies — and the ability for client/subscribers to direct research”. Corporations may well see value in this although presumably all research will be available to all subscribers meaning there would be no competitive edge to gain from it.

As a reader of Mobile Industry Review who certainly can’t afford to pay £12,000 per year I’m feeling quite sad that it’s soon to be taken away from me. I’m not alone; the comments underneath the announcement on the site feature a string of people wishing Ewan and his team well but expressing their sadness.

It’s telling that, of the comments posted so far below the announcement, virtually all are from regular commenters won’t be able to access the site soon. Blogs are built around their community of readers. I’ve always felt that while MIR has influence in the UK mobile industry it’s the community of “geeks” who comment and contribute (such as myself) that help make it such a vibrant blog. Will it lose some of that vibrancy over time? I don’t know and chances are neither will you as you probably won’t be reading it.

Then there’s all the small, independent mobile developers who won’t be able to justify the expense. David Carrington launched Dabr, the best Twitter interface for (non-Apple) mobile phones, as a direct result of comments he read on Mobile Industry Review. Public access to a site like this helps the industry grow in ways it won’t when it’s private.

Someone else could launch their own alternative, but Ewan and his team have resources and contacts far beyond the average mobile phone geek. Which is why, I suppose, they’ve been able to sell out. They may well have had to sell out eventually. Running such a busy site is an expensive business and MIR is hardly overflowing with advertising.

This all said, I’d certainly like to wish the site well for the future and fingers crossed they’ve made the right descision.