Okay, the new version of the JellyTelly site is up (as many of you have already noticed). It doesn't have everything we had hoped to have quite yet (including the high scores mechanism, which will, hopefully, be added soon), but it's a good next step for JellyTelly. Check out the February news update on the site for my exciting, "in person" explanation. (It's almost like being there!)
You'll also notice we've opened the site up to everyone for free, which will, no doubt, surprise those of you who have gone to the trouble of subscribing. Gathering feedback and looking at the results from our two month trial, we concluded the subscription model might not be right for us. We had wondered all along if people would look at JellyTelly more like a Club Penguin ("we'd be happy to pay for this!") or more like a YouTube ("This is fun, as long as it's free!") While we had some very enthusiastic subscribers, it appears the majority looked at the site more like a YouTube. Perhaps people aren't ready to pay to watch video online, or perhaps we didn't have enough content yet or… (insert your theory here).
At any rate, we learned a lot from our beta test, and one of the things we learned is that requiring a subscription really limited our audience size. (In fact, just in the 3-4 days the site has been completely free our audience has nearly doubled.) So "free" equals bigger audience. Of course, "free" also equals "no revenue," which creates certain issues. So we're thinking through our business plan and talking with several potential partners about how to move forward. We'll need to make some decisions in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
So ya see, here's the deal: We're jellyfish. God chooses our course, we stay in the center of His will and let Him worry about the details. So we're being "carried" away from the subscription model for now, awaiting the new direction God has in mind. It's an interesting experience… business, faith, God's will, our plans. Hold your plans loosely and God tightly. We'll see where we end up next…
Brave move but I think it is great that you are reponding rapidly to your feedback. Particularly at a time like this, when parents can’t aford to take kids out then your fee alternative might look especially attractive.
So glad you’re remembering that you’re Jellyfish.
Needed to hear that. (For myself – and it’s good to know that one of my favorite visionaries is keeping his feet in peace!)
Who is making all of the short videos?
(I mean the Jelly Bits)
I was trying to remember who your voice reminded me of, then I realized you voiced Bob the Tomato. lol
We’ll be promoting it hardcore. JellyTelly banners have now begun flying across the blogosphere. Quick tip: you’re link to JellyTelly.com in this post is dead.
Keep up the good fight.
;D
Do you have an official JellyTelly sidebar button or banner to use on blogs or should I just create my own?
Wow… I was just about ready to sign up for the subscription as my boys are loving it!
Let us know what we can do to help…
So I guess your income is on a prayer by prayer basis until future notice? I’ll do my part.
But what if I want to keep giving you money every month?
What about making each day’s content free and having a library of past shows available for a monthly fee?
I think you have to fix the link to jellyfish.com in your post.
Looking forward to watch that stuff with sound enabled, can’t do it on this box.
Hi,
the link to jellytelly.com in your post is broken.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to watching it when I’m back home.
There is no moday
I agree with Elizabeth… what if I want to keep giving you money every month?
$3.00 a month for quality kids programming is something I’m happy to pay for, and it’s cheaper than renting movies or buying a cup of Starbucks!
So do we keep paying if we`re suscribers?
Hey Phil, I’m one of those people who loves God and has a strong interest in animation (although, I still have a lot to learn about both). I loved VeggieTales since the first video and your life story has been a huge inspiration and lesson to me.
Even though JellyTelly is now free, you guys should still have a way to donate cash. I’m not sure how all the redtape works with accepting donations, but I think what you guys are doing is awesome and I’d love to be able to send what little help I could now and again.
Visitors doubled in four days? Wow! I don’t know what the numbers are, but if you attract a certain demographic, I’m quite sure you can pick up some sponsors\partners who are also interested in the same audience. I’ll be praying for those groups to come out of the wood work looking for you. At times like this, business needs to advertise and do it smartly! You may just be their next smart move!
I was wondering why I didn’t need to log in to see the videos. I don’t really have too much trouble paying for your work, but that’s because I saw a value in it and for the $3/month we pretty much agreed it was well worth it. I can see that you’ll get more people interested if it’s free, though.
As asked above – what happens to paying subscribers now? Cancelled subscriptions? “Premium” members? (perhaps with no ads or whatever you decide on for actual revenue) I’d be willing to let my subscription continue, but can see others may not.
As for the reasons, I think a lot of people have trouble subscribing to something online in general. If it’s online, it’s supposed to be free – that’s what we’ve been conditioned to expect. 🙂
Anyway, we’ll be enjoying it. Not having to worry about whether my login stuck or not helps my daughter to be able to watch as she wants. Now if I could just watch it on my console so it would show on the TV instead of a laptop…. 😉
I think you’ve started something that has a lot of potential and has been great so far. I look forward to seeing what the future holds. Thanks for the update and all of your work!
Love the new animation for the welcome song.
Well, as Peter said, Premium Members could work.
Like being able to download the videos……. For future viewing.
Also, If you introduced a iPhone app called “JellyTelly for iPhone” or something, and you can buy for $3.
Like this:
Limited(Free) Premium($3 a month)
ONLY INTERNET Downloadable
10 Games 20 Games
Umm some other option Something cooler than earlier listed.
And so on……
(But I really don’t like sites like that……)
But Limited Accounts should always be able to upgrade to Premium.
My family is thrilled with Jelly! I do not think much of T.V. but my kids have all grown up loving VeggieTales. I think that reading books is still about the greatest thing that kids can do to fill their downtime. But I have to admit that JellyTelly is wonderful I have been letting my kids watch whenever it suits our schedule. I personally love the Bentley Brothers and although Jelly is free right now(great) I would gladly pay for my kids to watch JellyTelly! Please keep up the excellent work!! God Bless!
Hey, YouTube would just be some small obscure site if it were not free. Free content and everyone comes. Jelly Telly could end up growing more quickly and having a much larger impact this way, assuming of course you are able to pay the bills. Exciting Times to be a Jelly, good to let God lead. Perhaps God knew the pay plan would hold things back. Who knows? I’m glad someone does.
I signed up for the free trial about 3 weeks ago and I was definitely going to subscribe when the trial ended. Lousy timing. My kids are wild about JellyTelly and I am as happy as can be to let them watch as much as they want.
I would love to send a donation to Jellyfish Labs…. Where and how?
Why don’t you just make merchandise? Like CDs, DVDs, T-Shirts, etc.
Or mabey add advertisments to the site?
Look at something like Disney Channel and they make all of those big bucks from merchandise and advertisements.
Well the thing is that kids are being bombarded with ads every day and Phil Vischer wants to protect kids from all that. Or at least that’s like what he said on one of the clips.
Hi Phil, that’s certainly interesting news that it’s now all free. It’s good you’re reacting to the trends which you’re noticing.
The thing you need to remember with Club Penguin is that they have different levels of membership. You have free, and then paid accounts which do more. Perhaps you should adopt this approach with your subscriptions. I’m sure people would pay if they had access to more videos and games.
Good luck & God bless,
Anthony.
Oh, by the way Phil:
Perhaps you could allow subscribing ( paying ) users to choose their “viewing stream”, where they select the videos more appropriate to their age children. Non-paying users just get a mix of all the age videos (although not all the videos available, just some of them).
We love Jelly Telly here too! Thanks for all the great programming. We don’t watch tv at all, but jellytelly is too fun to pass up. The kids are learning so much from your shows… and i have more annoying songs that get stuck in my head all day long LOL.
Good luck with everything. I try to promote it on my blog, but i would love a banner or something to use 🙂
Okay first let me say that my 3 year old is walking around the house all day saying “Rejoice in the Lord. Say it again. Rejoice in the Lord”…from a GodRocks video that he re-watched today. WHO CAN PUT A PRICE ON THAT???
And it was a rough day for me. From the mouth of babes….
Do you have a non-profit status? What if you set it up, or even a portion of it as a ministry for donations. Oh I know, I’m the FIRST to get annoyed with drives and such, but it is a ministry indeed, and it seems as if people would be open to that idea.
Wow. I’m in a situation right now where I needed to hear those words, “We’re jellyfish. God chooses our course, we stay in the center of His will and let Him worry about the details.”
I suppose if we still wanted to “donate” to JellyTelly we could just go to the JellyBits website and download clips at $5 each.
Commander Erich’s idea is a good one, isn’t it? Download the clips to make a donation.
What do you think? Would that work?
Do you want me to make you a JellyTelly activity book? You could put it on a print on demand site, such as Lulu.com, and get some money every time people get a copy.
People are more used to paying for physical objects than they are to pay for information, and since it’s print on demand and I’ll make the material for free, there won’t be a startup cost for you.
I do have to comment that advertising would truly turn me away. As I wrote before, I’d much rather pay a bit than expose my kids to the ads. I know not everyone can, but I’d even pay a bit more so that others can watch for free. Up to $5/month (possible a bit more) in case the market research people were wondering.
So cool what you are doing. Still looking forward to buying some t-shirts. Love the idea of premium membership that allows downloading past clips (or simply watching two weeks of old episodes instead of only one week.) Maybe premium members can watch movie of the week for the full week instead of for only the weekend. In any case, I WANNA GIVE YOU MORE MONEY! I like the comment about thinking of the JellyBits as a way to donate to you!
Well I would have certainly supported you and had given to your company but I simply didn’t have the money. I haven’t had a job in almost 10 months now and things are very tight. But I hope to be able to support you and your business somehow when I get work. The Lord will come through for you financially, I am sure of it. God Bless and God Speed Mr. Vischer. 🙂
Jessica,
May the Lord provide for YOU as well…I’ve said a prayer for you. Hang in there!
Yeah, I wouldn’t like ads.
But merchandise would be really nice, as long as you could buy them even if you live in Sweden… like I do.
I would also like to say that I am happy that I can now watch Jellytelly (clips) on my mobile phone, thanks to Youtube 🙂
I have shown the site to friends of mine, unfortunatly most elderly or young here don’t understand english that well, so I have decided to make some programs of my own, inspired by your network (but in swedish).
If it turns out well I might send them to a christian tv-network here in Sweden (Kanal10).
philvischer.comjellytelly.comjellytelly.comThe link doesn’t work.
It links to http://www.philvischer.com/wp-admin/www.jellytelly.com
Presumably you meant to type http://www.jellytelly.com instead
Anyway, glad to see that you’re still around
Couldn’t JellyTelly function like a Christian radio station? You know, a very quick, non-commercial blurb before each day’s webisode. (i.e. Today’s episode supported by Mt. Zion Baptist Church… where people matter.) I could handle that better than banners and such. It’s such a great ministry, and I know a lot of Christian colleges, grade schools, and church children’s ministries would be willing to support. Granted, that would require a lot of regulating.
Thanks Charla!
I really do appreciate your prayers. Yeah its a tough market out there. Really tough.
I was just heard your message at Moody’s Founders Week conference. Thank you. It was stirring. I need to meditate on that idea a while.
Oh, I should say that my little family subscribed to JellyTelly as soon as our free month was up. We love it. I’ve even thought of writing some material to run by you or your acquisitions guy, if I can make it good enough. JellyTelly is great.
Hey Phil, put a link to JellyTelly on my site. I’m still praying for you guys, so hang in there!
Also, love the fact the JellyTelly is free for now. I have to admit, I’m one of the persons that saw it as a YouTube like site. Great content, really educational.
Thanks for making this FREE—and for making it period.
Blessings to you.
Karin
Phil,
I JUST heard about JellyTelly this week from our church. I say this, because maybe the issue is that not enough people know about it? Maybe that’s why subscriptions were low?
I have 5 1/2 year old twins, and we don’t own a T.V. However, now that they are in Kindergarten, I’m seeing that I’m already starting to lose a bit of influence on what goes in to their brains.
I’m seeing that I can’t act like they won’t be bombarded with messages now and in the future.
I’m realizing that I have to fight the fight, using the same methods (but different content) that the “world” is using.
So I’m thrilled to find a site like this and would gladly pay for it.
I just sent an email to those in my address book with young kids or who know young kids to tell them about jellytelly.com
I really think it’s more a matter of not enough people knowing about it then it is people seeing this as a YouTube model.
I see this as PBS on the Internet. So, maybe a donation model if not a subscription model?
(by the way, I found this site by doing some Googling to figure out how the jellytelly site was funded)