For those that don't know me, I'm John Wilker, co-founder of 360|Conferences (360|Flex, and 360|iDev). Tom Ortega and I have created a new venture to go along with our community oriented conferences. 360|Whisperings ( http://www.360whisperings.com). For those of you who own Amazon Kindles you know that Whispernet is the delivery medium for purchased content.
We've created a site where people can come and browse the available content and instead of subscribing for all you can eat, simply purchase the articles that they want. Subscriptions are great, but you have to get your money's worth. We're looking to go more the iTunes route, for a buck or two, get the same quality article you would from a pay site or journal, knowing it's quality content, and not have to pay for the content you don't want or need. We're not just going to be limited to the Kindle (and the iPhone/iTouch technically) but that's a good turn key place to start. Our goal is to offer content in as many formats as we can (PDF, ePub, Mobi, PRC, etc) so that everyone can get access. We'll take care of editing and marketing the content and reporting on sales. The split is 60/40 us, in exchange for the stuff I just mentioned. Our conference sites will link to and highlight content as well as the primary site itself. I know it seems like small change, and it is to start, but the more articles we get, the more momentum this offering builds. We've got a few folks signed on right now, coming up with article ideas. We're hoping to get a few more folks for the "official" launch so that we've got a good library set up and ready for folks. Why subscribe to sites and journals, and have no idea how much value you'll get from the content? Just pay for what you want. We're looking for technical content on any topic; CF, FLex, Flash, AIR, Java, etc.