Piano Media

Piano (formerly Piano Media) is a SaaS company specializing in advanced media business processes and online commerce optimization software. Piano Media merged with competitor Tinypass on Aug. 11, 2015.[1] With the merger and after acquiring US-based Press+ in Sept. 2014 from RR Donnelley & Sons, Piano became the largest provider of metered paywalls worldwide with more than 1200 news and media providers globally using their platforms.[2] Founded in 2010 by Etarget & Monogram Ventures, in 2012 the company raised €2M in series B funding from 3TS Capital. Piano specializes in systems integration of its cloud-based SaaS solution.

How the Piano Media Systems work

With the Aug. 2015 merger, Piano's clients will be moving to the Tinypass platform called VX, a stand-alone turnkey paywall solution used by magazines in the Time Inc. group, M. DuMont Schauberg and Canada's Postmedia Network. This solution is the most popular paywall being used by the newspaper industry today because it allows Piano and the publisher to collect user data to drive revenue.[3] Piano's national system, still in place in Slovakia and Poland works differently. On participating publisher's sites, a 60 pixel registration bar runs across the top of the site (below the menu bar in a reader's browser). The bar allows a reader to register and it shows the subscription status of the reader. If active, all locked content is fully accessible on the publisher's site. Readers pay a flat-fee, either weekly, monthly or yearly and to receive full, unfettered access to all participating media's content. Publisher's content remains on its websites rather than being pushed onto Piano's site. The payment window is javascript served as a layer on the publisher's site, so there is no redirect of the user to a different payment site. Unfortunately, this model is extremely prone to failure, and frequently denies paid subscribers access to the system. Customer service is poor, leading to a large amount of consumer complaints.

In the Piano National model participating publishers are compensated via a revenue share based on two items. A commission is paid to the site where the user purchased their subscription. There is also a volume component paid to publishers based on the time spent reading content across all participating publisher sites. “We will earn some money through the project which is better than nothing,” said Matus Kostolny, SME's editor-in-chief. As of March 2012, media earn monthly in average 1.1 eurocent per each visitor.[4]

According to Matus Kostolny, only unique content is locked and the rest is free, which enables newspapers to keep traffic on the website.[5] SME.sk also restricted comments under articles to 3 comments per user and day for readers without Piano. A similar restriction was introduced in Pravda, but was later lifted.[6][7]

History of Piano Media Systems

In the summer of 2010, Marcel Vašš, the CEO of ETarget, a targeted online media advertising company, was thinking about how to monetize major media content and invited Tomáš Bella, former deputy editor of Slovakia's bigger news portal SME and then a consultant at NextBig to help him flesh out the idea. The two came up with a plausible plan and were approached by an angel investor who agreed to provide first round funding to set up the project in Slovakia, do market research in the rest of Europe and lead Piano to a second round of funding.[8]

The idea Vašš and Bella formulated was a cross between a micro-payment scheme and a cable TV subscription. Excellent contacts within the Slovak publishing industry[9] enabled the duo to quickly conclude pay-wall agreements with nine major Slovak publishers. On April 18, 2011 Piano's nationwide pay-wall went up, although as a free two-week trial. On May 2, 2011 Piano's pay-wall was erected.[8] In September 2011 Piano received Series-A funding from Jan Jenča and Ivan Štefunko at Monogram Ventures. Piano is using the money to solidify their Slovak market share and expand into several other European countries.[10] In January 2012 Piano Media expanded into Slovenia, bringing seven publishers into the common payment system.[11] In April 2012 Piano secured €2 million in a Series B growth capital round from 3TS Capital Partners’ Technology in Central and Eastern Europe Fund S.C.A. SICAR. Piano will use the money to accelerate their growth world-wide.[12]

July 2012 Piano Media launched its third national payment system in Poland, teaming up with seven publishers who put more than 42 different magazines, newspapers and the national radio station in Piano's system.[13]

In November 2012 Piano assumed all the rights and some developers from the Austrian firm Novosense.[14] The technology allowed Piano to introduce a new "metered pay-wall" which can be applied in conjunction with their national pay-wall model or separately.

In February 2013 Piano began licensing its technology to individual publishing houses. The solution known as "Piano Solo" has been licensed in Germany, Spain and the United States.

In Sept. 2014 Piano Media purchased Press+ making it the biggest paywall provider in the world.

In Aug. 2015 Piano Media merged with US competitor Tinypass.

Criticism

Hopeful Subscriber Figures
Piano has been criticized for manipulated numbers claimed during paidContent conference. Its CEO Tomáš Bella expressed hope, that 1% of Slovak internet population would become subscribers. Piano estimated in 2011 the Slovak internet population to be 2.3 million people,[15] but Eurostat 2011[16] and AIMmonitor (a service of IAB Slovakia)[17] estimate 3.3 and 2.8 million people respectively, many of them dissatisfied with the customer service provided.[15]

In May 2014, Piano released subscriber and revenue details from the first three years of Slovak activity[18] to refute claims by blogger Rastislav Kuciak, that according to public accounts summary, Piano has 3,800 to 5,400 subscribers,[19][20] that is much less than official estimation of 20,000 subscribers. Piano's CEO Bella objected, stating Piano has more subscribers than guessed at by bloggers, but did not supply additional details.[21] Being privately held, Piano Media has never revealed subscriber or revenue figures. Piano Media, in addition to lying about subscriber numbers, continues to mask their failure to provide adequate service through inflated statistics. Customers often report poor responses to inquires, further indicating a company in decline. Once considered to be an upcoming venture, these failures have condemned the company to languish and many observers predict total collapse within two years. Potential investors, as a result, are wary of such a poorly run operation.

Current participating publications in Slovakia

[22]

Current participating publications in Slovenia until April 30, 2015

[37]

Current Participating Publications in Poland

[38]

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Kafka, Peter (Aug 11, 2015). "Online Paywall Builders Piano Media and Tinypass Merge". re/code.
  2. ↑ Wauters, Robin (Sep 9, 2014). "Slovakia’s Piano Media buys US counterpart Press+ to create world’s largest digital paywall tech company". TechEU.
  3. ↑ Sweeney, Erica (Jan 29, 2015). "Real Paywall Value May Lie In Data". NetNewsCheck.
  4. ↑ "Piano médiám prináša len 1.1 centu na návštevníka za mesiac". DSL.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  5. ↑ Tomek, Radoslav; Schweizer, Kristen (May 12, 2011). "Slovak Media Follow Murdoch by Pushing Online Paywall Plan". Bloomberg.
  6. ↑ "Piano dostalo ďalší úder, Pravda vyňala z Piana diskusie". DSL.sk. 2012-02-04. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  7. ↑ 1. februára 2012  10:00. "Pravda.sk uvoľňuje debaty zo siete Piano - Pravda.sk". Spravy.pravda.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  8. 1 2 Bella, Tomas (Oct 15, 2011). "Piano - National paid content system". Slideshare.
  9. ↑ "Tomas Bella". LinkedIn.
  10. ↑ Media, Piano (Sep 29, 2011). "PIANO MEDIA a.s. ANNOUNCES €300,000 IN SERIES A FUNDING TO ACCELERATE EUROPEAN GROWTH". Piano Media. Archived from the original on November 6, 2011.
  11. ↑ Media, Piano (Jan 11, 2012). "Piano Media Expands Into Slovenia". Piano Media. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012.
  12. ↑ Invest IQ (23 April 2012). "Piano Strikes A €2 Million Chord With 3TS". Invest IQ.
  13. ↑ Media, Piano (July 18, 2012). "Polish Media to Launch Piano’s Online National Paid-Content System". Piano Media.
  14. ↑ Media, Piano (Oct 30, 2012). "Piano Media Acquires Advanced Audience Identification Technology, Introduces Piano Solo". Piano Media.
  15. 1 2 "Piano v zahraničí tvrdí, že má cca 20 tisíc predplatiteľov a v SR používajú Internet len 2 milióny". DSL.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  16. ↑ "Statistics in focus" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  17. ↑ "Aimmonitor: 04 2012" (PDF). iabslovakia.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  18. ↑ Media, Piano (May 1, 2014). "piano oslavuje 3 roky". Piano Media.
  19. ↑ Rastislav Kuciak. "Piano: Prvé čísla, prvé sklamanie? Blog - Rastislav Kuciak (blog.sme.sk)". Rastislavkuciak.blog.sme.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  20. ↑ "Piano v roku 2011: Výrazná strata, 5 400 predplatiteľov - Živé.sk". Zive.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  21. ↑ Filip Hanker (2012-10-06). "Šéf Piana: Máme oveľa viac predplatiteľov, než sa zdá z uzávierky - Živé.sk". Zive.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  22. ↑ "Participating publications". Piano Media. Retrieved May 2, 2011.
  23. ↑ "AIMmonitor.sk". Association of Internet Media. Retrieved Feb 1, 2011.
  24. ↑ "SME začalo upúšťať od blokovania obsahu Pianom". DSL.sk. 2011-11-13. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  25. ↑ "Home - The Slovak Spectator". Spectator.sme.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  26. ↑ "Korzár na webe. Najlepšie spravodajstvo z východného Slovenska". Korzar.sme.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  27. ↑ "Časopis Plus 7 dní" (in Slovak). Pluska.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  28. ↑ "Pluska, správy zo sveta šoubiznisu, z domova, zo zahraničia, ekonomiky" (in Slovak). Pluska.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  29. ↑ "Týždeň - iný pohľad na spoločnosť". Tyzden.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  30. ↑ "Všetky médiá | Mediálne.sk - vedieť vidieť". Medialne.etrend.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  31. ↑ "MeToo: multimediálna televízia". Metoo.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  32. ↑ "Pc Revue". ITnews.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  33. ↑ Prihlásenie. "Huste.tv". Huste.tv. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  34. ↑ "Piano sa rúca, Joj si spoplatní obsah vo vlastnej réžii". DSL.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  35. ↑ '+wine.name+'. "Pravda.sk". Pravda.sk. Retrieved 2012-10-18.
  36. ↑ Pravda.sk leaves system Piano (in Slovak)
  37. ↑ "Participating publications". Retrieved May 2, 2011.
  38. ↑ "Participating publications". Retrieved July 18, 2012.

External links

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