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Cardiff-based SubHub Ltd is dealing with scores of inquiries from experts in various fields who want to create websites so they can share their knowledge with paying members.

 

SubHub, which chose to locate its head office in Cardiff last month, provides the internet platform, site maintenance and training and support for authors and publishers to capitalise on their expertise.

 

The company, operating from the @Wales Digital Media Centre in Cardiff Bay, is being backed by a half million pound investment package made up of private funds, a Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Welsh Assembly Government and loan capital. SubHub is also on the Assembly Government’s High Growth Programme, the Welsh Development Agency-managed fast-track business expansion scheme.

 

Subscription sites on the net offer a vast range of content. One belly-dancing site has 8,000 subscribers paying $59 a year – an income of more than a quarter of a million pounds.

 

Among the most popular are the “healthy, wealthy and wise” sites, offering news and advice regarding personal, spiritual and emotional health; wealth creation and management; and special interests and hobbies such as wine collecting or yachting. In the U.S., one minister is boosting his funds by posting ready-made sermons for other subscribing ministers.

 

Other successful subscription websites include how to run a successful restaurant; a guide to earning a living on eBay; soccer fanzines; classic cars; ‘toddler taming’; diets and a site used by airline pilots for inside advice on hotels and attractions during worldwide stopovers.

 

Among SubHub’s high-profile clients is internationally-renowned wine expert Jancis Robinson. From her London home, she regularly updates her website with all the latest news and reviews of fine wine and food, funded by subscriptions rather than advertising and sponsorship.

 

Subscription websites are one of the fastest growing areas of internet business. Nearly $2 billion was spent on subscriptions last year, a figure expected to double by the end of 2007.

 

One of SubHub’s founders, Miles Galliford, said, “High-quality specialist information is increasingly less likely to be provided free on the web. People with in-depth knowledge or experience of a subject, whether it is popular or incredibly niche, are beginning to realise that they can make money – very often a lot of money – by packaging up their information and releasing it regularly on a subscription website.”

 

Fellow founder Evan Rudowski said “The formula has worked well for the publishers of newspapers, journals and newsletters for some time. There are many individuals out there who are – or could be – making a handsome living from their knowledge without leaving their house.”

 

 

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