Joining Jewish audio stalwarts TorahMedia and AishAudio, IShiur now is providing downloads and streaming audio for Shiur fans.

This site too boasts a nice collection of popular speakers such as Rabbis Reisman, Becher, Rietti; even a few from Rav Shlomo Wolbe, Z"TL. The site is designed very nicely and in an orderly fashion which is easy to navigate.  One thing that they bring to the table that I have not seen on the other sites is a full biography as well as a catalog for each speaker (although some bios are not available yet). The catalogs are laid out well instead of being just a list format like the other sites. 

Interestingly, IShiur is the only site of the major players (Aish, LearnTorah, TorahMedia) that charges for streaming as well as downloads. Additionally, as opposed to TorahMedia which has made some free shiurim available, the only free samples on IShiur are clips from the Shiur. I am not really sure I understand how that will be enough to warrant a purchase. I am curious as to their thought process with this.

Overall, it seems like a good offering, at least the standard $4 downloads. I would like to see them add podcasting ability to their site as well.

OCNM spin: The business model of the internet today is  the ad riven model built on pageviews. I am surprised that all of the shiur sites seem to be bent on only going the e-commerce route. I know that costs have to be covered, but there is so much free content out there and there really isn't enough room for so many sites offering fractional catalogs. Why not have an uber site which can provide everything for free and support the content creators with ad revenue generated. This way, the most popular speakers will make more without any production cost carried by the consumer or the creator. What do you think? Please feel free to comment and continue the conversation.

 


Comments

Mordy O

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:00:19

"OCNM spin: The business model of the internet today is the ad riven model built on pageviews."

Counterexample: iTunes

 

Mordy O

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 15:00:50

"OCNM spin: The business model of the internet today is the ad riven model built on pageviews."

Counterexample: iTunes

 

michael Szpilzinger

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:59:10

Mordy,

That's a great point. However, I am looking at from the standpoint that a Shiur should be essentially looked at as content and not as a product. With iTunes, you are buying a song so that you can listen to it as many times as you want. In regard to Shiurim, I think people just want to hear the shiur, internalize the message or be entertained, and then move on. There is no need to "own" the shiur. I'm not saying that there is no room for some premium content.

Actually, if you look at music, we are starting to see a slow shift to songs becoming "content" as well. Look at the radiohead campaign.

 



Leave a Reply

Name (required)
Email (not published)
Website