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Opinion: Why Ascender's Fonts Live service is doomed from the get-go
Fonts Live is a service which lets you embed beautiful fonts right on your Web page. They have a catalog of 200 fonts, and they are all quite lovely.
Does the idea ring a bell? Maybe it's because Google has a very similar service which is totally free!
This is something that really astounds me. How can you offer a service for such rates and expect to make money, when a behemoth like Google is just giving it away?
Yes, Fonts Live has a much wider selection than Google. But those rates you see on the screenshots are for a single font family of five fonts!
I think this is Analytics all over again. I mean, there were web analytics services before Google Analytics came along. But there was nothing good and free. Even "cheap" is a huge barrier to acceptance, and this isn't really cheap, either (once you realize you're getting a single font family).
Fonts Live is run by Ascender, which seems like a fairly serious outfit. And the service itself is, as I said, solid. So this becomes a question of marketing: What do you do when Google starts offering what you offer, for FREE?
Unless Ascender has got an ace up its sleeve, I would be surprised to see Fonts Live around in a year or two.
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsJordan RunningJul 7th 2010 3:27PM
Erez, your editorial here seems short-sighted and ill-informed.
Firstly, Google's Font API is an open source collaboration with TypeKit, a for-profit company with a very similar offering but slightly different business model to Ascender's FontsLive. Your post seems to suggest that you were unaware of TypeKit's very existence. At the very least a mention of it would have shown that you have some knowledge of the market Ascender is entering.
Secondly, you ask how they can compete with Google's free offering. This is a no-brainer: Selection. FontsLive, like TypeKit, offers hundreds of fonts that would cost tens of thousands of dollars if purchased individually. Google's service (which I think is excellent, by the way), on the other hand, offers 18 fonts. Will they offer more in the future? I'm sure they will. But I very much doubt they'll ever offer even the same order of magnitude of fonts as FontsLive and TypeKit. I work with designers. I know for a fact that they like Google's free offerings, but definitely need more, and are willing to pay for it in many instances.
The question you should be asking is, can FontsLive compete with TypeKit? It's hard to say. TypeKit offers its entire collection for one yearly fee, whereas FontsLive charges a yearly fee per font, with bandwidth restrictions. I suspect that for some businesses the latter model will work better, while the former will be preferable. But I do think that a business model with potential, and if it fails it won't be because Google prices it out of the market.
edev247Jul 7th 2010 3:54PM
Don't forget, webfonts.fonts.com, they have 2000 plus fonts for free member, and it should grow to 7000 pretty soon. There are lots famous fonts like Helvetica, Frutiger and Univers etc.
Scruffy BobJul 7th 2010 8:15PM
I also think those prices are pretty fair - you are not paying for the service, really. You are paying to license the fonts. Like Jordan said, this is a hell of a lot cheaper than purchasing the font license outright.
Bill DavisJul 8th 2010 3:35PM
Erez, I am with Ascender, the developers of the http://www.fontslive.com/ web font service. It made me happy to read the comments from the others here who don't share your opinion. I think they captured the key values that a commercial web font service like FontsLive offers web designers & developers: premium quality commercial fonts, offered in a convenient and affordable service.
The market for web fonts is brand new, and will most certainly evolve quickly over time. For professional designers and developers, the pricing model we have come up has received a lot of positive comments. It all comes down to the perceived value of the service we are offering.
We have developed a flexible platform that addresses the full range of users, from bloggers to the web's largest websites. FontsLive offers both hosted web fonts and a self-hosted option: each with the convenience of generating the web font files and CSS stacks in a manner that eases implementation and addresses browser changes/version differences.
But most importantly, what web designers and developers are most interested is improving the typography of their sites. And to this point, the quality of the font rendering across platforms & browsers is critical. That is one of the most important differentiators of a service like FontsLive. All our fonts are hand-tuned by our font experts, led by Tom Rickner (who is well-renowned for the hinting work he's done on Verdana & Georgia and countless other system fonts that make up the 'web safe' fonts everyone uses today).
Is FontsLive doomed from the get-go? Based on the comments above and our early success with a wide variety of customers I hardly think so. Only time will tell who's opinion is right.
Matthew RogersJul 9th 2010 12:01AM
The market may be brand new, but you're certainly making more than your fair share with the rates you charge.
I'm sorry, but I agree with Erez on this one. Granted, your site isn't "doomed" -- there are plenty of people who will see the glitter and gloss of your offerings and pay you handsomely -- but there are other routes to take.