Wheels30_ab Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 So I am new to Geocaching and just had the thought that it would be a great idea to offer new Basic Members a free trial of Premium Membership to show them the benefits of it. It could be a 2 week or 1 month trial, but something to allow people new to the sport the opportunity to see the benefit of the premium membership. Matt Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 So I am new to Geocaching and just had the thought that it would be a great idea to offer new Basic Members a free trial of Premium Membership to show them the benefits of it. It could be a 2 week or 1 month trial, but something to allow people new to the sport the opportunity to see the benefit of the premium membership. I've heard of someone posting here saying that his free trial is not working, so maybe it's already being offered? You get a free 1 month trial with purchase of certain GPS receivers (e.g. Garmin's paperless units). Link to comment
+Ike 13 Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 I have also heard of reviewers giving out a 1 month trial to new members. When I upgraded to my Delorme it came with a free month which I gave to my mom. Link to comment
+Corey Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 There used to be a shorter membership option, $3 for 1 month IIRC. The best you can do now is the $10 for 3 months plan. A free trial is an interesting idea, though. Link to comment
Wheels30_ab Posted April 4, 2010 Author Share Posted April 4, 2010 Yes some GPS units may come with the free trial, but many people purchasing those units are not buying it and are probably not interested in Geocaching. It would make sense for Geocaching.com to target those who have enough interest to sign-up for the site a taste of what a premium membership includes. If I had a short free trial, it would definately help me decide if it was worthwhile for the benefits of it to me. I have thought about upgrading as long as I am still actively Geo-Caching in 6 months, but with a free trial that may help some people decide to do it immediately. I really think they should look at doing a 2-week free trial, and even only offer it to those who are currently basic members of this site as a test group. From that they should be able to see how it effects the sign-ups of newer members. They could even weed it down further to those who have logged in within the past 30 days, to ensure it is an active member. Matt Link to comment
Keystone Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. Link to comment
Wheels30_ab Posted April 4, 2010 Author Share Posted April 4, 2010 Yes there would be a chance of people doing that, it could even be limited to 1 per IP address, that would definately help stop the abuse, as someone would have to be quite dedicated to abusing the system to use many differnet ip addresses. With Marketing being my proffession I do think it would make sense for Groundspeak to do a trial in the way I have suggested. Currently registered Basic Members who have been active in the past 30 days. From the response of that they could interpert the feasability of people signing up from a free trial. Matt Link to comment
+tozainamboku Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. My concern would be people who sign up a sock puppet account and use the trial premium membership to post to the off-topic forum. Could you imagine the off-topic forum with sock puppet accounts Link to comment
knowschad Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. How could you build any impressive stats like that? I really can't see that happening very often... surely not enough to be a real problem. Link to comment
knowschad Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. My concern would be people who sign up a sock puppet account and use the trial premium membership to post to the off-topic forum. Could you imagine the off-topic forum with sock puppet accounts OK... you have convinced me. No OT forum posting for these trial premium accounts. Period. Link to comment
+Jeepster++ Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. How about limiting the free accounts to 1 or 2 queries of 20 waypoints per day? Just enough to tease demonstrate premium features to prospective customers without giving away the store. Link to comment
+t4e Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 (edited) The problem with free trials? People would create throwaway accounts just to be able to suck down extra pocket queries for the two or four week "free" period. Finish with your April free trial? Create a new account for May's data. Careful data accumulators would be sure to register each account from a different IP address. While your idea is a good one for a normal honest user, I fear that there's too many out there who are trying to build giant offline databases, and will take advantage of every means of making that process easier. How could you build any impressive stats like that? I really can't see that happening very often... surely not enough to be a real problem. sure they can, the sock puppet accounts will just be used to get the trial memberships and the PQ's, their main account will the one that logging is done under even if it were to be set at one trial per IP, i agree that these days is very easy to abuse the system and create accounts hiding your real IP not even one were "email verification" is required will work... i think the best way to show the benefits of Premium Membership is to have a video with step by step instructions from the beginning to end, visuals always work better than reading but seriously now, whomever is serious about geocaching surely can spend $10 for 3 months, when you think about it its 2 coffees at Starbucks Edited April 4, 2010 by t4e Link to comment
Wheels30_ab Posted April 6, 2010 Author Share Posted April 6, 2010 It's already easy for people to abuse the system, if you can use google. I have found several sites that list usernames and passwords for premium accounts so people can access anytime they want without paying. I found these looking for discount codes for shopping, that shows how ease it is to find this info, I can guarantee that Premium Memberships are already being abused by regular users of this site, you will never get away from it. It is a fact that some people will always cheat the system and bend the rules. Offering a free trial would definately help stop some people from using that type of access. Link to comment
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