Subscription Revenue Research Articles

WMS: Revenue Model Innovation for Gaming Solutions

In 2014 WMS Gaming, a manufacturer and seller of slot machines to casinos, was considering a redesign of its existing revenue model. As technology evolved and customer demand for gaming solutions intensified, new and innovative revenue models were being adopted in other technology markets. Most notably, the subscription revenue model, in which customers paid a monthly subscription fee rather than a large upfront fee, was becoming widely adopted in the software industry. Product manager Dayna Stone had the task of evaluating several revenue models and recommending one that most suited WMS's business needs and at the same time took customer needs and wishes into consideration. Complicating this decision were several factors that would have to be kept in mind. Americans' love of gaming had led to a mushrooming of casinos, which meant increased competition for casino dollars. Yet the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath had weakened demand for casinos. In addition, casinos, depending on the type of customers they attracted, differed in their appetite for innovation and maintenance of their slot machines. Students will step into the shoes of Dayna Stone as she undertakes the task of weighing these factors and selecting the right revenue model.

SOCIETY ACTIONS

SOCIETY ACTIONS

Science in transition: open access to society?

Science in transition: open access to society?

Scientific Discourse: Buckling at the Seams

[See All Special Issue Content][1] Thomas Edison built an empire on his 1093 patents. But one innovation he considered a failure has had a lasting impact on how scientists communicate. He bankrolled the startup of Science , among the first general science journals, which debuted on 3 July 1880 with a bland description of the U.S. Naval Observatory and a cover plastered with classified ads. Science faltered at first, but in the end it thrived, and so did scientific discourse. The mid-20th century saw a key innovation, the anonymous referee. This mechanism depends on trust, in both the integrity of submissions and in peer reviewers. That trust is being tested by a disruptive change in scientific communication: open access. Unlike traditional journals, which rely largely on subscription revenue, many open-access publications earn their daily bread through publication fees from authors. Profit is linked to volume, seemingly boundless on the Internet. Although the open-access world includes many legitimate journals, abuse is prevalent, as a Science investigation has found. Over the past 10 months, contributing correspondent John Bohannon submitted faux papers with blatant scientific flaws to 304 open-access journals ([60][2]). More than half accepted the paper. Granted, some traditional print publications might have fallen for our hoax, too. But with open-access journals proliferating, debate is needed about how to ensure the credibility of scientific literature. Open-access pioneer Vitek Tracz believes that anonymous peer review is sick and collapsing under its own weight. As a remedy, Tracz has launched a new open-access journal in which reports—including all supporting data—are reviewed after they are posted online ([66][3]). The findings and ex post facto reviews become a living document that proponents say will offer a more nimble forum for revising knowledge as it accumulates. SURVEY What do you think about open access publishing? Take our [ Open Access Survey ][4]. As the number of published papers (and the cost of doing research) grows, there is an increasing need to predict impact; for a novel approach, see the Report by Wang et al. ([127][5]) and an accompanying Commentary (Evans, [44][6]). The ability to publish papers and their underlying data in full on the Internet opens new possibilities to showcase the neglected stepchild of scientific publishing: negative results. In the past, data revealing that a drug has not lived up to its promise, for example, often failed to see the light of day ([68][7]). But now they may find a niche in the limitless library of the Internet. On the other hand, disseminating certain scientific information could pose a threat to safety and security. The recent debate over whether to publish influenza gain-of-function studies illustrates the conundrum ([70][8]). Scientists in industry, too, are struggling to define the limits of openness when communicating proprietary research, and whether some kinds of patents may actually squelch innovation ([72][9]). In the face of changes driven by the Internet, one form of communication is surprisingly resilient. By and large, scientists are unwilling to forgo the rite of annual meetings, where they gather to argue about new research, network, and gossip ([74][10]) and to draw inspiration from top presenters ([78][11]). The vitality of the scientific meeting has given rise to a troubling cottage industry: meetings held more for profit than enlightenment ([76][12]). How the dramatic shifts in scientific communication will affect the culture of research and processes for academic advancement and funding is far from clear (Harley, [80][13]). In the Commentary section, Konneker and Lugger ([49][14]) notes that we have come full circle: Once again, science is becoming more of a public activity. Kahan ([53][15]) describes how to use evidence effectively and what pitfalls should be avoided in communicating vaccine information to a wary public. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/scicomm/index.xhtml [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full [3]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/66.full [4]: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5YYTRF2 [5]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/127.full [6]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/44.full [7]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/68.full [8]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/70.full [9]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/72.full [10]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/74.full [11]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/78.full [12]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/76.full [13]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/80.full [14]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/49.full [15]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/53.full

Nonlinear Pricing of Japanese Newspapers

In Japan, the newspaper publishers with the greatest daily circulation offer both morning and evening editions in most of their distribution areas, and many of them allow their customers to choose between morning-only and morning-and-evening subscriptions. Each such newspaper publisher, in setting the subscription prices and numbers of pages of content in its morning edition and evening edition, must take into account self-selection of demanders as to type of subscription. The subscription offerings thus amount to second-degree price discrimination, which is the main reason why it might be profitable to even publish an evening edition along with the morning one. Estimates here show that the Japanese newspaper publishers that do offer optional evening editions enlarge their profits by around eight percent of their morning-edition subscription revenue. Furthermore, these newspaper publishers increase consumer surplus by an amount equal to half what they add to their own profit. The second-degree price discrimination increases social welfare.

System Dynamics Integrative Modeling in the Diffusion Dynamics of Indian Telecom Sector

In recent times, India has emerged as one of the fastest growing telecom markets in the world and witnessed a telecommunication revolution brought about by a collaboration of government, industry, and the scientific community. From a situation where an applicant had to wait three years to obtain a telephone connection to a position where telephone companies are wooing consumers, it has been a success of indigenous technology development and effective diffusion management. Derived from the insight gained in the course of literature research and interaction with industry experts, in this paper, a system dynamics integrated model of Indian telecommunication sector (Mobile Telephony) has been calibrated to demonstrate the nature of interactions among system variables and the resultant outcome which assume degrees of importance at different stages of the diffusion/adoption process in the Indian telecom sector. From a supply chain perspective, the study has encompassed system modeling of the entire ‘supply-line’ of Telecom diffusion i.e. Supply-side dynamics (R&D, Infrastructure, Production & Promotion), Adoption-dynamics (Potential Adopters, Rate of Adoption and Number of Adopters) and Market-side dynamics (Subscription demand, Revenue and Profitability)The work done here proves how the application of system dynamics modeling and simulation can contribute in a meaningful way to improve the holistic understanding of the dynamic structural complexities and forces driving and arising from the supply line of telecom diffusion. Several model simulations show the potential of using system dynamics as a promising modeling approach to capture, integrate and predict the structural behavior of innovation diffusion process. In the end, a novel interface of neural net has been explored to perform sensitivity analysis and a scenario projection of multiple usage situations has also been conducted.

Open Access in International Relations: A Symposium

The electronic revolution in academic publishing brings promises as well as pitfalls. The main promises are greater efficiency, vastly greater access to the journal literature, a more equitable global sharing of intellectual resources, and hopefully improved quality. Open access—free entry to the electronic version of the journal literature—is in many ways a logical continuation of this development and will break the trend toward accelerating journal costs. But if the subscription revenue simply disappears, neither publishers nor editors will have the necessary funding to keep up peer review and other editorial routines. One alternative is to levy page charges for publication. Intermediate models are also possible, where the journal may keep its copyright to the final edited product while authors are allowed to post the final submitted version on their Web site. At the moment, open access is uncommon in international relations, but the publishers and owners of journals, including academic societies such as ISA, would be wise to think through these issues before they become acute. This symposium is a contribution to that process.

What IJCP authors think about open access: exploring one possible future for publishing clinical research in a general and internal medicine journal

This editorial shares the questions that IJCP is, at the time of this publication, asking research authors about ‘open access’. It aims to prompt discussion about open access, and explains some of the challenges that switching to open access presents to a general and internal medicine journal like IJCP. It invites you to share your insights, using the approaches described below. It explains how you will be able to read the results of our research.

Subsidizing the Press

Information is the lifeblood of a free society, and the professional press is a crucial source of information. For many years, the positive externalities from investigative and beat reporting were cross-subsidized by robust advertising and subscription revenue. Yet the professional press is experiencing a severe economic crisis, and news organizations across the nation are on the brink of insolvency. When an activity that generates positive externalities is undersupplied, the textbook policy response is a government subsidy. Yet if the press becomes financially dependent on the government, would they be deterred from monitoring and criticizing the government? If so, the subsidy would undercut the very social benefits it is meant to preserve.In response to this conundrum, this Article proposes a three-part analytical framework for evaluating press subsidies. The first step is to assess how effectively the subsidy safeguards press independence, including the extent to which the First Amendment helps to achieve this goal. The second criterion, which this Article calls “focus,” gauges how effectively a subsidy channels resources to externality-generating activities, as opposed to other uses. For example, a subsidy that induces press organizations to hire more reporters is superior to one that can be used, instead, to fund pay raises for the advertising staff or more attractive office space. The third criterion is political plausibility. How likely is a subsidy to attract political support? And how much political support does it need? One that can be implemented under current law, for example, requires less political support than one that depends on broad new legislation.Based on this framework, the principal recommendation of this Article is for news organizations to make greater use of the nonprofit form. By providing a subsidy through the charitable deduction, we would not empower the government to choose how much funding to allocate to each news organization. Instead, the charitable deduction allows the government to piggyback on the judgments of private donors about which charities to support. In addition, this subsidy is feasible politically since it already can be used, to a significant extent, under current law. This Article also considers four alternative subsidy structures, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses and showing the tradeoffs they present.

Annual Reports To Council Ecological Society of America August 2009

<i>Annual Reports To Council</i> Ecological Society of America August 2009

Moving from Free to Fee: How Online Firms Market to Change Their Business Model Successfully

Moving from free to “free and fee” for any product or service represents a challenge to managers, especially when consumers have plenty of free alternatives. For one online content provider, this article examines (1) the sources of long-term revenue loss (through attracting fewer free subscribers) and (2) how the firm's marketing actions affect its revenue gains (through attracting paid subscribers). The authors quantify revenue loss from several sources, including the direct effects of charging for part of the online content and the reduced effectiveness of search-engine referrals and e-mails. The analysis suggests several managerial implications. Managers should focus their price promotions on stimulating new monthly subscriptions, rather than the current promotional focus on stimulating new yearly contracts. In contrast, e-mail and search-engine referrals appear to be effective at generating yearly subscriptions. Meanwhile, free-to-fee conversion e-mail blasts are a double-edged sword; they increase subscription revenue at the expense of advertising revenue. Finally, further analysis shows that the move was preceded by the buildup of momentum in new free subscriptions, which appears to be beneficial for the move's success. The decomposition and comparison of the sources of revenue loss versus gains reveals several trade-offs facing companies moving from free to free and fee.

The economics of open access publishing

In terms of economic models for publishing, open access publishing means only one thing – the costs of publishing are not recovered by limiting access in any way, since that would conflict with open access. Since subscription revenue inherently depends on limiting access, an alternative to subscription revenue is needed in order to cover the cost of open access publication. There are several possible ways in which these costs might be covered, of which the most well known is the use of article processing charges, or APCs – which are not unlike the page charges levied by many subscription journals. A key benefit of the article processing charge model is that the revenue scales in proportion to the number of articles published, allowing open access journals to keep pace with the increasing number of research articles being published as research activity around the world gathers pace. Increasing numbers of articles create a problem for the traditional subscription model if library budgets fail to keep up with research funding and productivity. It is important to note that while article processing charges may sometimes be paid directly by authors (typically from their grant funding), in other cases APCs may be centrally paid, by the author’s institution or funder. In some cases, open access journals may receive direct support from a funding agency or other organization, as form of infrastructural provision to the scientific community. In such cases, journal can be free at point of use to both authors and reader, while still being economically viable. In fact, a surprisingly large fraction of open access journals (especially in developing countries) are directly supported in this way, so that authors do not face charges.

Bipartisan Bill for Public Access to Research—Time for Action

Bipartisan Bill for Public Access to Research—Time for Action

Open access jumps the pond

The open access movement has fueled debates in the US between advocates of free access to biomedical literature and publishers that depend on subscription revenue for their livelihood. The controversy now travels to the United Kingdom, where funding organizations are working to establish a public-access archive for research articles. London’s Wellcome Trust, the UK Medical Research Council, and other UK-based granting agencies are financing the effort to establish a counterpart to the US’s PubMed Central, an online repository of journal content managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the NIH. It was launched 5 years ago and now contains reports from about 180 journals that participate voluntarily. The goal of the storehouse is to preserve and provide free, unrestricted access to biomedical literature. The UK version should be similar to PubMed Central, using the same software and archiving comparable content. “The archive aims to provide free, fully searchable access to research papers and data. For the value from research to be maximized, we need to ensure that the knowledge is freely and widely available to those who need to see it. The value of having a central archive is clear,” a spokesperson from Wellcome Trust told the JCI. Since May 2, 2005, the NIH has requested that investigators supported by NIH grants submit electronic copies of accepted research articles to PubMed Central within 1 year of publication. PubMed Central then offers free access to such articles. The NIH developed the public-access policy as a result of pressure by Congress and patient organizations advocating free access to biomedical and life science literature supported by taxpayer funds. Following on the heels of this NIH request, Britain’s Wellcome Trust announced on May 19 that after October 1, 2005, all of its grant recipients will be required — not requested, as with the NIH — to deposit any accepted articles arising from their funded research in an open access directory within 6 months of publication. The group of funding agencies is currently seeking an organization to run the database. According to the Wellcome Trust spokesperson, “The sooner the project can practicably begin, the better. A UK PubMed Central will improve the efficiency and power of research and the sooner that’s available, the better it is for researchers.” But some UK scientists are not so easily convinced. “I detect in the UK that scientists still have very mixed feelings about open access,” said David Paterson, physiology professor at Oxford University. He pointed out that several charity-based societies, like the Physiological Society, depend upon subscription revenue from their journals to operate and the policy could have a negative effect on them. Just as it has in the US, the UK initiative may vex some journal editors and publishers, who feel that the integrity of their businesses is being questioned. Some point to the potential problem of having more than one version of an article in circulation, specifically, the accepted manuscript before copy editing found in the free access repository and the edited article as it appears in its published form. “Where is the definitive article? What gets referenced?” Paterson asked. Despite the potential pitfalls — the same ones faced in the US by NIH researchers — many UK scientists are in favor of the proposal. Stephen Dunnett, a professor at Cardiff University in Wales and an advocate of open access, said, “The present situation where publicly funded research is kept to restricted access…seem[s] fundamentally wrong.”

The Open Access Debate

For more than a year there has been widespread discussion of a new publishing model for scientific papers, generally referred to as “open access.” Although there are several definitions of this term, all revolve around two basic principles: that authors retain copyright of their own research papers and license to publishers only the rights required to distribute those papers; and that research papers are made freely available in publicly accessible databases such as PubMedCentral, immediately or soon after publication.

Revolution or evolution?

A shift to an open-access model of publishing would clearly benefit science, but who should pay?

Journals’ Online Access Costs Are a Shared Burden

Blume and Brodsky Reply: The American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics would like nothing better than to have our journals available without charge, not only after six months, but immediately. There are, however, very real costs for the peer review, composition, production, distribution, and maintenance of the online journals; these costs must be met and someone must pay. At present, our major source of revenue is subscription charges, with author page charges providing a much smaller part of our income. (An examination of Joaquim Fort’s list of “prestigious journals” that make their content available after some time shows that the majority are medical journals, which have the possibility of significant income from pharmaceutical advertising, which is not available to us.) As not-for-profit societies, we cannot run the risk of losing subscription revenue, which would likely follow from making our journals available without charge after six months.Beyond material published online since 1995, APS and AIP have also been putting their earlier content online: APS, back to the beginnings of Physical Review in 1893, and AIP, back to 1985, with publications back to 1975 scheduled to go online this year. Substantial costs are involved, which must be covered. These back-files are available at very affordable prices by subscription or modest fees for single articles. We believe this fee structure makes the material easily available to cross-disciplinary researchers. If we made these files of earlier articles available without charge, then someone—presumably the subscribers to current content—would have to pay extra. The entire community must cover the cost of distributing physics research results. If we do something that reduces charges for one group, we must raise prices for the others.© 2002 American Institute of Physics.