Portal Dumps 15,000 Paying Customers

Ernst Poulsen on micro-payments
In just 12 months, the Danish portal Jubii has managed to convince 15,000 users to pay an annual fee of 250 Dkr (US$30) to join its Jubii Nation concept. The fee covered special services like chat, e-mail addresses, high-quality Web radio, discounts at restaurants, etc. Jubii is the largest Danish website, with approximately 1 million unique users per week and 20 million page-views a month.

Although 15,000 paying customers seems like a high number in a country with 5 million inhabitants, Jubii has decided to close down the entire “Jubii Nation” concept in favor of micro-payments. “The trend is clear — the entire media market is moving toward more flexible products, to meet the still more individual needs of customers,” says CEO Martin Thorborg in an interview with the Danish edition of Computerworld Online. Jubii initially will let readers use either credit cards or the “Valus” micro-payment system, which is backed by 50 media websites in Denmark.