Subscription Economy News: Week of 02/03/2020

Every week, we bring you the top stories and analyses from the global Subscription Economy.

The New York Times increases digital subscription price for the first time

Excerpts from an article by Hannah Zhang on CNN

The New York Times will raise the price of its digital subscription from $15 every four weeks to $17, its first-ever price bump. The 13% increase will take effect on March 8.

It is the first time that The New York Times (NYT) has raised rates for its digital subscription service.

The company launched the subscription model in March 2011, becoming one of the first American news organizations that put its content behind a paywall after allowing unrestricted access.

The newspaper now has over four million digital subscribers, and it aims for 10 million by 2025.

For more, read the full article on CNN and learn how Zuora helps media companies succeed via subscriptions. 

Nvidia GeForce Now Game Streaming Is Now Available

Excerpts from an article by Dave Royse on Benzinga

After a long beta period, video gamers can now sign up for Nvidia’s $5-a-month GeForce Now service, a cloud gaming service that could challenge Alphabet’s Google Stadia.

Nvidia’s service will differentiate itself by allowing players to play games they own anywhere instead of having to buy new ones or subscribe to a library of games.

GeForce Now allows players to play the games they own via Steam, Activision-Blizzard’s Battle.net or Uplay, allowing players to play games they already own by signing into the service they own it on through Nvidia’s service.

For more, read the full article on Benzinga and read Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo’s perspective on subscriptions in gaming.

Strava hits 50M users and is ‘nearly 100%’ focused on subscriptions

Excerpts from an article by Ethan Wolff-Mann on Yahoo! Finance

Social media and fitness tracking company Strava has surpassed 3 billion “activities,” which are workouts uploaded by the platform’s users, who now number 50 million.

“A year ago, less than 20% of our company was focused on the subscriptions business and today it’s nearly 100%,” Horvath told Yahoo Finance in an interview. “That’s been the biggest change since we stepped back up in November.”

Strava said the conversion rate from free to paying subscribers on its platform has stayed at the same level as total users have grown. Horvath said that the renewed focus on the subscription-based product will hopefully result in more conversions.

To power this, the company is focused on innovating its product experience.

For more, read the full article on Yahoo! Finance

Google tests photo printing subscription service

Excerpts from an article by Chris Morris on Fortune

Google Photos is testing a monthly subscription service that will automatically print 10 of your photos and mail them to you.

Artificial intelligence will select 10 4×6 shots from the past 30 days, based on preferences users select. Subscribers will pay $7.99 per month for the pictures.

Users will have the option to edit the photos before they’re printed or can get a surprise delivery each month.

For more, read the full article on Fortune

For more Subscription Economy resources and events, head to www.subscribed.com

 

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