In the summer of 2012, Liz Cadman knew she had a problem. She was addicted to subscription boxes, and she wanted more. She couldn't find the information she wanted online, however, to make smart buying decisions, so she started a blog to talk about subscription boxes. The blog grew into My Subscription Addiction, a full-fledged website dedicated to the discussion of subscription boxes. In four years, the site has exploded in popularity, and she has added additional features including swaps, a discussion forum and more. Learn how My Subscription Addiction started and grew into what it is today.

How can you combine a wholesale book business and a passion for children's literacy to get more books in the hands of kids? With the subscription box model. That's how founder Eric Shmuely made his dream become a reality -- by creating a subscription book service for children.

Last year the publishing industry was abuzz with the news that the Winnipeg Free Press was experimenting with a Read Now Pay Later micropayment platform, where readers pay $0.27 (Canadian) per article they have read. Dana Neuts explores how well the first seven months of the strategy has gone.

At just three years old, Readly has experienced rapid growth and is defining success in the digital magazine publishing space. Now offering nearly 1,100 magazines and more than 17,000 issues in 49 countries, learn more about Readly in this exclusive INSIDER Case Study.

In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, PYMNTS tells us about fitness-as-a-service for business travelers using the subscription model, Zuora publishes the subscription economy index for the second quarter of 2018, Digital Commerce 360 explains why smooth payment processes are key to shopper satisfaction, Hubspot offers freemium success secrets, and LinkedIn posts a variety of top subscription jobs.

In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, RIAA reports mid-year results, revealing that streaming music is dominating music industry revenue, a new report shows that over-the-top TV revenue will jump 26 percent this year to $28.8 billion, Bloomberg says that Google and Facebook will comprise more than half of the digital ad market in 2018, Adobe will acquire Marketo for $4.75 billion, and China has blocked Amazon-owned Twitch.

We hope this week’s edition of Five on Friday finds you safe, dry and out of harm’s way. Today we have five subscription-related stories to kick off your weekend: the original Twitter feed returns, Google agrees to give up some control of its AMP publishing format, Stripe gives brick-and-mortar payments a try, Shopify explains how brands can get permission to use user-generated content, and Postmates raises an astounding $300 million in its latest funding round, as its CEO hints at a possible IPO in 2019.

We hope you have had a great week! We are here to wrap it up with the week’s Five on Friday. In this edition, we’ll share details about Europe’s brand new copyright law, why customers prefer convenience over strong authentication, proven customer retention strategies, how to maximize your brand on Twitter and how Apple is encouraging developers to consider subscription options in a new video.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of effective customer service. But how do you know if you are delivering that? And what channels -- phone, email, chat, social media, etc. -- should you emphasize? How about innovations like chatbots, intelligent agents, and other automated systems?

Measuring customer service breaks down into two general areas: satisfaction metrics based on customer attitudes and performance metrics based on support staff behavior. …

The entertainment industry has been complaining for years about its staggering losses due to piracy. However, even as the video, game, and music industries have evolved toward subscription and streaming business models, they continue to generate significant profits. Media firms still say that rampant thievery is costing them billions -- over $50 billion in 2017! Where’s the resolution to this conundrum?

Credit cards are a blessing and a curse for subscription publishers and monthly box merchants. Yes, auto-pay on a regular basis is sweet indeed, but it comes with the peril of card default. Cards expire or max out, customers dispute charges, and more ... but there are ways to minimize the detrimental effects of credit card declines and chargebacks on your subscription business.

Credit card transactions have topped three and a third TRILLION dollars. With that volume, even a tiny percent of misfires create problems on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. Companies that depend on card transactions, especially those who depend on recurring payments, need to be proactive in preparing for pitfalls.

Facebook’s recently-discovered data breach was more serious than originally anticipated. In late September, Facebook revealed hackers found a security loophole caused by three separate bugs that affected nearly 50 million Facebook accounts. At the time, Facebook did not reveal that any personal information had been stolen, but now the social platform is saying that 29 million people have had their personal information accessed.

Owners of iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs will get $1 billion in free original programming when Apple launches its forthcoming streaming video service, reports CNBC. Similar to the Amazon Channels marketplace, Apple will offer subscription channels for existing OTT services like Hulu and HBO Now through its updated digital TV app. Customers will be able to access all their paid channels through the Apple TV app. Sources say the new app will be available early next year, though Apple has not confirmed the launch date.

With the Supreme Court nomination hearings and the worst of Hurricane Michael behind us, we bring you this week’s subscription news headlines. This week, Comcast launches X1 Music Week, offering free access to subscription music service Pandora Premium, Tinder fights back against co-founder Sean Rad for his lawsuit, and Wired works on its original, licensed programming line-up for its new OTT channel. Also this week, Forbes tries blockchain, Microsoft’s xCloud service streams Xbox games to just about any device, and SoundCloud loosens the monetization reins a bit.

While MoviePass continues to falter, AMC Theatres’ movie subscription service, AMC Stubs A-List, hits another milestone as it grows to 400,000 members. This represents more than 80 percent of AMC Theatres’ first-year goal and 40 percent of its second-year goal in just over three months’ time. The company launched the movie membership service as part of its customer rewards program this summer, offering AMC Stubs A-List members access to three movies per week for $19.95 a month.

Subscriber retention is a cornerstone of successful subscription commerce. However, credit card declines and failed payments can lead to churn and lost revenue. In this on-demand webinar, we will take an in-depth look at the latest subscription industry benchmarks based on a sample set of 1,200 subscription businesses. Understand what is working in payment decline management and get your all your subscriber retention questions answered.

Looking to transition your products or services from perpetual licenses, or one-off purchases, to a recurring revenue model? In this on-demand webinar, we outline successful strategies and tactics to help your software business transform into a recurring revenue machine.

 Do you have great content (or a service or organization) and want to make more money with it online via memberships?

In this on-demand seminar, author and membership expert Rob Ristagno will teach you his "Five Forces Framework" to help you do just that.  Based on his book, A Member Is Worth a Thousand Visitors, Rob will guide you step-by-step through the five forces of creating new online revenue growth, and show you why it is…

Do you know how to achieve the "Retention Point" in your business, that moment when your members fall in love with you and become Lifers? In this on-demand seminar, we'll show you why that happens and the exact steps to make it happen more often, on purpose. With one-half of subscription revenue growth coming from retention, understanding how to achieve your own Retention Point can make a big difference in your renewals.

Sharing content, by consumers and businesses alike, is the goal of so many on social media. But how many are effectively sharing their content, to how many and is ti effective? In this Subscription Insider STATPACK, we explore social content sharing among internet users. It highlights photo and video sharing apps, as well as the sharing of personal information via social networks online. This STATPACK is 109 pages, editable, with 50 detailed charts and four embedded excel tables.

Fashion-related Subscription Boxes are big, literally changing how consumers discover and find new wardrobe items for their closets. This Subscription Insider STATPACK presents insights and statistics on the fashion e-commerce market in the United States. It provides an overview of the market volume and statistics on consumer spending and shopping behavior. It also includes data on the most relevant online retailers and websites, as well as information on mobile shopping and digital payment usage.

A third of consumers have complained about companies on social media, and almost 40 percent are OK with using social channels for customer support. What’s your strategy for serving these customers and managing the way they interact with your brand? Remember, whatever your strategy, the Internet is watching!

We are sure you are up to speed on “Cord-Cutter” trends, what about “Cord-Trimmers” and “Cord-Nevers”? Understand the trends, predictions, demographics, habits, and impact of subscription video streaming. What caught our attention in this report, was the pace of change moving forward, how much time consumers are spending with subscription video (versus other forms of video), and how cord-cutters and cord-nevers are acting similarly as the market matures. There are lots more insights enclosed including, understanding consumer habits, streaming service trends and predictions, details on who cord-cutters and cord-nevers are, an overview of their impact on the Pay TV market, and more. This STATPACK is 68 pages, editable, with 30 detailed charts.

Are you receiving more alerts notifying you of expiring cards? We have and frankly, it’s no surprise with the increase in the volume of payment cards that been reissued. Without that updated payment information, subscribers and members will not get renewed successfully. In this sample, we show you real examples of payment card update notices from three separate companies, with three very different approaches to getting their subscribers to update their payment information. Plus, a bonus, Subscription Insider’s own notice!

ABC Mouse Early Learning Academy is an award-winning, subscription-based site/mobile app that uses email promotions to acquire subscribers. In this Sample, we walk through their promotional email campaign and offers. Are they sending too many promotions? Are they effective? You be the judge.

You may not be a sports fan, per se, but everyone plays games, whether it's chess, checkers or Thursday nights down at the local bridge club. We took a look at three sports-themed businesses offering subscriptions to see how well (or not) they are converting visitors into subscribers.

Many subscription sites are using some lighthearted copy that borders on passive-aggression. Is this an effective tactic? What do you think?

Understanding the difference between your most valuable customers and those that will not renew, is like separating out the wheat seeds from all the wheat chaff at harvest time. It will take the right tools and tactics to maximize renewal rates. Subscription Insider's Retention Workbook (Excel) will help you track the retention performance by key drivers in your business, turning your data into both a summary and a detailed retention report that you can use to manage your retention.

Does your subscription management or billing platform connect you to Account Updater — a service offered by Visa, MasterCard, Discover and more recently, American Express — that provides updated payment card information to help merchants manage involuntary churn issues? With this directory of 25 subscription management and billing platforms that support account updater services, you'll be able to create a short list of vendor contenders for your subscription business based on applicable industry experience, existing customers, payment gateways and processors supported, as well as pricing.

This extremely detailed subscription & membership financial model was developed as a tool for would-be subscription businesses who either are planning a new launch or an acquisition. It may also be useful for current publishers who are doing a minimum of marketing and who want to see how their cash flow might change if they ramp up marketing and/or ancillary product offers. Its purpose is educational and inspirational rather than strictly predictive . Everyone's business is slightly different, so it was impossible for us to create an easy-to-use model that would work with enormous accuracy for all. However, if you've not modelled this type of business extensively before, you'll learn a great deal from it!

Effective monitoring of subscriber retention is the result of understanding retention opportunities and trends, tracking attrition patterns, developing a tracking methodology, and applying those metrics in order to manage your retention business more effectively. Use this excel workbook to track and manage your subscribers and members.