MAYNARD, MASSACHUSETTS, Mar. 09, 2007 – Online groups and Internet communities have been gaining popularity ever since the inception of the Internet, and increasingly so with the advent of group services offered by Yahoo! and Google. A new player on the scene, iGrOOps (www.igroops.com), offers a suite of web-based software for group communication and information sharing with one big difference: iGrOOps offers financial incentive to online groups that allows those who start “groops” to get paid for their efforts.
Traditionally, similar companies have offered group software such as web-based mailing lists, file sharing, and calendars free to the starter of the group and its members, supported by ads and in some cases, spam. iGrOOps boasts “ad free”, customizable Internet community sites, and additional applications not common to other group sites, such as web voice chat, an online audio/visual presentation creator, audio postcards, and more. So who pays for all of this if not advertisers? The members. But will they? Founder and CEO, Bo Bennett thinks so.
“In the early 1970's, Home Box Office (HBO) felt that members would pay for quality TV programming – and they were right. In 1992, Sirius and XM paid upwards of $80 million dollars to broadcast satellite radio to paid subscribers, despite the widespread availability of traditional radio. People want quality content without the advertisements”, says Bennett. “And if they can get it without obnoxious ads, all the better,” he adds.
The pay-per-membership model has other advantages as well, according to Bennett. “Many online groups lack solid content and active participation. When someone starts a group and receives payment for each member that joins, there’s a greater incentive to keep the content fresh, and the member happy. Additionally, when a member pays even a small fee to join a group, the likelihood of their participation increases significantly.”
iGrOOps offers customers the opportunity to create and customize a “groop” site at $99 per year. Pricing for individual memberships to the group vary, as the person starting the group sets the membership fees.
About iGrOOps Founder and CEO Bo Bennett
Bennett, a veteran Internet entrepreneur, sold his first Internet business, Adgrafix, to Allegiance Telecom in 2001 for $20,000,000. He is the author of the book Year To Success, which Donald Trump calls “an inspiration to anyone who reads it.”
