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Posted 6:17 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Times of London, Ireland.com to Charge for Some Content ...
Vin Crosbie on online business models
Three major English-language newspapers' websites this past week announced that they soon will begin charging for access to some content. The Times Online (The Times of London and Sunday Times) will start charging all users for access to its law reports and a special World Cup section, and charge users from outside the UK to access any of its site. It already charges a fee to access online crosswords and archives. The proposed new fees weren't announced. The site also is experimenting with a system that would charge UK users' mobile phones for stories accessed.Ireland.com, the news and portal site operated by the Irish Times, announced that it would begin charging users for premium content by the end of May. It defines premium content in this article. Ireland.com is surveying its users on whether they agree with the statement that "news/content based Internet sites will not be sustainable as free access sites in the future" and whether its subscription fees should be 100, 90, 80, or 70 Euros (US$90 to $63) per year. (The moves of Times Online and Ireland.com follow the announcement earlier this month that the Financial Times plans to start charging users up to £100 (US$143) per year for access to parts of its FT.com website.)
... And Here's What Will Happen
Here's what The Register, a UK information technology news site, says about the developments above: "So what will happen when the charges are introduced: first the reader numbers will drop, and then the advertising revenues will follow. Overseas readers will tip up at for their UK fix at The BBC and the Guardian Online and, so long as it remains free, the Electronic Telegraph."
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Posted 5:34 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Scientology and Google, Explained
Rich Gordon on implications of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
John Hiler of Microcontent News has published a fascinating exploration of Google's removal of links to Xenu.net, a site critical of the Church of Scientology. (See Norbert Specker's mention of this in an item earlier this week.) The church, which is well known for fighting its critics by claiming that the critics are publishing copyrighted material, is fighting Xenu via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The act contains a "safe harbor" provision that protects a site that links to another site from liability for the second site's possible copyright violations. But the law also allows a company claiming copyright infringement (in this case, the Church of Scientology) to demand removal of links to allegedly copyrighted material — and, apparently, requires the links to be removed until the linked-to site (in this case, Xenu) provides a defense against the copyright infringement claim. It's enough to make your head spin, but the significance is clear: Until legal precedents are established, the DMCA is a potential threat to online publishers' First Amendment rights — at least, as they apply to hyperlinking. Here's Reuters coverage of the same topic from SiliconValley.com.UPDATE: Google, reacting to pressure from free-speech advocates, has restored its links to Xenu, according to a report by Venture Reporter.
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Posted 3:22 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Perils of Reporting in a Digital Age
Paul Grabowicz on online journalism
When the U.S. Department of Defense recently complained that a San Francisco Chronicle editorial had misquoted Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the DOD public affairs office not only sent the usual letter to the editor. It also had posted on the DOD website the transcript of Wolfowitz's interview with the Chronicle to back up its claim. This reminded me of a squabble between the St. Petersburg Times and the Seminole Tribe of Florida back in 1997, in which the tribe posted a transcript on its website of the Times reporters' interview of tribal leaders.All of which points out the new challenges that journalists face in a world of digital networks, where story subjects can disseminate their side of a dispute in ways the old print and broadcast media never allowed.
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Posted 12:09 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Now They Get a Real E-mail System
Steve Outing on AOL's mail system
I couldn't help but laugh reading the article in today's Wall Street Journal. It seems that AOL Time Warner has agreed to let its employees use e-mail systems other than AOL's — because the much-maligned AOL e-mail software isn't up to snuff for business use, and couldn't be upgraded to be of professional quality. What's surprising, of course, is the embarrassing corporate acknowledgement of something that Internet users have known for years: the world's largest ISP has never gotten its act together with e-mail; its software long has lagged in features and performance of e-mail solutions from other companies. The e-mail software used by AOL Time Warner employees was not the same as what AOL consumers use, but is based on the same technology.
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Posted 11:46 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Three Days of a Flash Way of Life
Eva Domínguez on Online Flash Film Festival
Barcelona concentrates for three days on the ideas, experiences, and talent that can be produced in Flash. The Online Flash Film Festival (OFFF) 2002, which started Thursday and ends Saturday, is an international meeting of Flash lovers. In this second edition, OFFF holds conferences, workshops, and showrooms that exhibit the creativity of designers who have tried to create new audiovisual languages.
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Posted 11:29 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Newspapers: Please Don't Link to Us
Jeppe Kruse on competing news services
Sometimes, deep linking is not OK. In Denmark, websites are arguing over the right to link to news articles. The Danish Newspaper Association (DDF) wants to stop other news services from linking systematically to their stories on the Web, and claims that these other services are violating common principles of when and where to cite a source. The DDF has acknowledged that the service Newsbooster, which searches and indexes thousands of news sources every day, is a search engine, and therefore not a direct competitor. For now, the case is a tie between the DDF and Newsbooster.To readers failing to see any logic in the proprietary mode of thought shown by the DDF, here's an explanation: In smaller European countries, where any website's number of potential users is restricted to those who speak the language, the Web is often overpopulated with news services and websites fighting over users. The most popular websites are run by people who have been making print newspapers for decades. What they fail to realize is that good content in itself is not enough. Most users don't want to read in depth, but to overview the entire daily specter of news. Users want it indexed, packaged, and delivered to their in-box, and a lot of them only read the headlines without following links anywhere. When more and more users adopt this stance, the packaging and indexing becomes just as important as the actual production of news. And those who actually produce journalistic content have two options: They can either try to recreate the market conditions they've had for centuries, and thereby interfere with basic principles of information on the Web — or they can change. Until now, the majority have chosen the first option.
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Posted 11:19 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
S. Korean Net Economy Bounces Back With Broadband, Wireless
Madan Rao on the global Internet
Internet usage in South Korea has rapidly matured from basic dial-up on PCs to broadband and wireless access. The number of Internet users in Korea was about 25 million at the end of 2001 and will reach 27 million at the end of this year, out of a total population of 48 million. Some 56% of Koreans use the Internet at least once a month. The major portals — Daum, Freechal, MSN, Yahoo, Dreamwiz, Naver, and Hanmir — are expanding their offerings from the PC user domain to cell phones and PDAs as well, in the form of wireless e-mail, news alerts, and instant messaging.According to surveys conducted by the Korea Advertisers Association, the portals Daum, NHN, and Lycos Korea experienced increases in ad revenues of 60% to 120% in January and February this year, compared to the same months last year. The number of domestic broadband Internet subscribers is forecast to reach 11 million this year, up from 7.8 million last year. Broadband Internet penetration rates are expected to reach 76.4% of the country's 14 million households this year. The number of mobile phone subscribers in Korea has inched up to almost 30 million. More than 21 million Koreans have access to the Internet through their mobile phones.
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Posted 5:47 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Top 10 Wired Women: Way to Go, Nora!
Steve Outing on an influential new-media guru
Congratulations to Nora Paul, one of the regular contributors to E-Media Tidbits, for being named one of the top 10 "wired women" by ABCNews.com columnist Dianne Lynch. Nora is director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota (and before that, a long-time faculty member of the Poynter Institute, publisher of this weblog). The column cites Nora's ability to bring together people from different backgrounds and interests (e.g., journalists and game designers; journalists and fine artists) to see where their ideas might converge.
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Posted 5:20 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Internet by Power Line Ready to Go In Chile
Juan C. Camus on access to the Internet
This coming Monday, the first experience in delivering the Internet through power lines will debut here in Santiago, Chile. The project was developed by a subsidiary of Enersis, a Spanish-owned holding company that owns the companies involved in the project. Powerline Communications (PLC) is a technology that allows the sending of data signals over power lines, and it will begin covering about 50 houses and stores in a central area of Santiago. The company reports that this PLC project, with a value about US$2.2 million, will be the first experience with this technology in South America.
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Posted 5:12 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Bloggers as a Distribution Channel
Rich Gordon on syndicating NYTimes content
Dave Winer (of Scripting News and Userland.com) has announced that users of Radio Userland, his company's weblogging software, can now access New York Times headlines for their blogs via an XML feed from the Times. (Thanks to my Northwestern University colleague, Brian Dennis of the Computer Science Department, for tipping me off.) This is a fascinating development, because it suggests that someone at New York Times Digital understands that weblogs are becoming an important distribution channel. This is part of an overall trend toward distributing journalistic content to virtual spaces (community sites, weblogs, e-mail inboxes) where people already are going — rather than expecting people to come visit a news website regularly. It's also interesting that not all bloggers think this is a good thing. Winer felt compelled to further explain/justify his relationship with the Times.
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Posted 2:04 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
DMCA in Action
Norbert Specker on Internet censorship
Google has been reported to have stopped displaying xenu, a site critical of the Church of Scientology, in its search results, citing (e-mail to webmaster displayed on xenu) a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) order. As censorship (self-induced and politically correct) finds its way into public discussion again, it is healthy to be reminded that not only the news can be filtered but that filtering the filters is an even heavier threat.
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Posted 10:35 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
On the Run and Online
Andrew Stroehlein on war criminal websites
In an article for this week's Tribunal Update, published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Petar Lukovic in Belgrade describes how the man at the top of the indictment list at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague is trying to use the Internet to get his side of the story across. Pursued by NATO troops and hiding out in the hills of Bosnia, Radovan Karadzic has at least a handful of supporters on the Web. The so-called "International Committee for the Truth About Radovan Karadzic" has set up a site to glorify a man who most find despicable. Lukovic describes some of the site's material as "vomit-inducing."
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Posted 8:10 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Mad @ About.com
Jade Walker on dot-com billing practices
When you pay your writers based on click-through rates and advertising revenue, you better keep your books in meticulous order. Thirty-four writers working as About.com guides filed a class-action lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, claiming the website's parent company, Primedia Inc., failed to pay minimum and overtime wages, the Wall Street Journal reported (paid subscription required to access article). The suit also contends that the company engaged in "fictitious, improper, and/or fraudulent" accounting, in order to appear as a profitable and viable dot-com. If they win, these writers hope to receive $100 million in damages.
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Posted 8:50 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Now That's Interactive
Steve Outing on reader feedback
In an item last week I noted the redesign of Online Journalism Review. Take a look now, especially at the comments populating the left-hand column (on the home page, as well as on individual stories). Allowing readers to append comments to stories is nothing new (we do it with E-Media Tidbits items like this one), but having the comments be displayed in full right next to the content is (versus a "discuss this" link or headline links leading to users' comments). I like this idea a lot; it signifies a site that understands what "interactive" means. Compare the OJR approach to comments to a more conventional treatment: see this Fast Company story with a "Sound Off" area at the bottom of the page. Which is better? Click discuss this and tell me.
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Posted 7:51 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Are You Willing to Reach for Your Wallet?
Steve Klein on paying for online content
Maybe the question was a no-brainer. But when Jupiter Media Metrix asked just what respondents would pay if free online content vanished, 63% of the online adults surveyed answered "nothing." "If anything," says JMM analyst David Card, "people are less willing to pay than they were 18 months ago." No category — not music, games, and certainly not news — drew more than single-digit responses from those willing to spend. Noah Shacthtman of Wired News concludes what we've known all along: Sites will have to find a blend of paid products and free advertiser-supported content.
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Posted 11:58 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Internet as Savior of Journalism
Rich Gordon on the Web's future
Michael Rogers writes in Newsweek ("Can the Internet Save News?") that the Internet will ultimately prove to be the salvation of quality journalism. He starts off discussing The News About the News, the book by Leonard Downie, Jr. and Robert Kaiser, which laments the quest for ever-higher profits that they believe has harmed journalism. But Rogers argues that in five years, "Internet news will begin to be sufficiently compelling and integral" to people's lives that the business-model problem will be solved — through some combination of subscriptions and targeted interactive advertising. His argument reminded me of Philip Meyer's "Learning to Love Lower Profits," a prescient 1995 article that suggested that editorial cost-cutting by today's newspaper companies would open the door to new publishers willing to sacrifice a little profit margin to produce a better-quality paper. The article did not focus on the Web, but Meyer's argument is even stronger if you believe (as I do) that online publishing will prove to be a very profitable business thanks to the low cost of distribution compared to traditional publishing.
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Posted 9:32 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
'We Don't Acknowledge Mistakes!'
Steve Outing on corporate arrogance
Looking over my notes from last week's Online Journalism Conference in Los Angeles, I was reminded of a striking remark by Dianne Lynch, who among other things (such as teaching journalism) is a columnist for ABCNews.com. She advocated that the site have a Corrections page, but since executives wouldn't go for that, she asked that there be a page just for her column — to post clarifications, give column readers an opportunity to challenge her, etc. No go, she was told.That's a wrong-headed attitude that will get ABC News in trouble eventually on the Internet. It shows that some big-media companies still resist the notion that online is an interactive media where both publisher and reader have a voice. It's the old we-tell-you-because-we-know-best stance. And to many Internet users (especially younger ones), it indicates that a media company is probably on its way to irrelevance unless its corporate culture loosens up.
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Posted 8:39 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Follow the Bouncing Ball
Steve Klein on online sports content
No sports event has greater impact on Web traffic than March Madness. With only the early returns in (through conference championship week and Selection Sunday), the NCAA men's basketball tournament is already creating big spikes, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. March Madness is directly responsible for boosts in visits to all the online sports leaders: ESPN.com, SportsLine.com, SportingNews.com, Fansonly.com, CNNSI.com, and FinalFour.net, the official tournament site (which used to be the work of TotalSports, which folded last year).SportsLine.com saw a 36% spike in traffic to 1.4 million visitors during the week ending March 10. SportingNews.com attracted 440,000 unique visitors, a 21% increase over the previous week. And ESPN.com saw an 11% increase, bringing in 3.4 million visitors. FansOnly.com received 9% more visitors during the week, or 550,000 visitors, and CNNSI received 2.6 million visitors, a 3% increase. Nearly 200,000 users logged onto FinalFour.net. And the numbers should only get better.
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Posted 8:32 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
'Colorblind' Net? Not Yet ...
Amy Gahran on race and the Internet
The "digital divide" that continues to plague the Internet often is reduced to a matter of class and economics, but race probably also plays a big role, says MIT professor Henry Jenkins in the April 2002 issue of Technology Review. Online communications and community generally remain pervaded by an assumption of whiteness. Jenkins reports that at a recent panel on race and the Internet, the minority panelists observed that "often, people simply assume all participants in an online discussion are white unless they identify themselves otherwise." And when non-whites seek to correct ignorant misperceptions about race in online discussions, they often are accused of "bringing race into the conversation."So far, most efforts to bridge the digital divide focus on economics and access — but that won't necessarily make everyone feel welcome in the online world. Says Jenkins, "Giving everybody broadband is a problem of a very different order than broadening our minds."
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Posted 3:45 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Hallelujah! i-mode Coming to the USA
Steve Outing on wireless Internet services
Japan's NTT DoCoMo is bringing its i-mode mobile Internet service to the U.S., probably in late 2002, according to a report on News.com. i-mode has been wildly successful in Japan, where it originated. Only three years old, the service has 31 million paying users in Japan and Europe. The most popular feature is text messaging. i-mode operates on a model where it works with thousands of mobile-content and -service providers, who get the majority of the revenue generated from i-mode phone users. American media companies will want to watch i-mode's introduction — it should spell opportunity.
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Posted 3:24 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
A Blog for Bloggers to Call Their Own
Norbert Specker on weblogs
It was bound to happen. Here's a blog (a.k.a., weblog) about blogs that calls itself Microcontent News, the online magazine for weblogs, webzines, and personal publishing. The account on how the blog virus works is very interesting. We had the same experience with the digital museum site (Sept. 11 media website screenshots) after being in the top 10 at the MIT Blogdex, a site that actually tracks the speed and spread of links within blogs.
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Posted 3:14 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Merging of Print and Web Advertisements
Martha Stone on searchable display ads online
Some websites have implemented searchable display ad functionality, allowing print display ads to be placed online to be searched by geography and product type. The technology also delivers e-mails to those users who want to be told about ads with sales or specific products and services as soon as they appear in the database. SFGate.com's PersonalShopper is a combination buy implemented for the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate, after months of difficulty selling the product as a voluntary add-on to a print display ad. SignOnSandiego.com and TheTimesOnline.com in northwest Indiana, also are testing this advertising proposition.
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Posted 2:59 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Multimedia Web – With Tolls
Rich Gordon on charging for online video
News websites increasingly are moving to charge for access to video. "Streaming video that is not subscription-based is a stupid idea," Bernard Gershon, senior vice president and general manager of ABCNews.com, tells the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to argue against this, because the costs of serving video are significant and rise dramatically with increased usage. (In the wake of Sept. 11, MSNBC said increased video-serving costs were a large factor contributing to a wave of layoffs there.) This is definitely good news for Real Networks' RealOne service, which has become the video "content pass" of choice — allowing video providers to offer content by subscription. It remains to be seen how many users will be willing to pay for video that, even with a high-speed connection, is substantially inferior to TV. And over the long haul, I can't help but think that there will be huge advertising revenue associated with Internet-delivered multimedia — so I wonder if subscription video will last.
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Posted 11:40 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Sane Approach to Paid Content
Steve Outing on another Web publisher charging
As reported this morning in CBS MarketWatch's Internet Daily, MerriamWebster has debuted a new website that offers online access to its comprehensive Third New International Dictionary. The cost is $4.95 a month, or $29.95 a year. MW will continue to offer a free website, which give access to the electronic version of the Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus. The paid service targets researchers and institutions, not the general consumer; the paid, unabridged e-dictionary contains more than double the entries of the free version.I think this is the right approach to online content — providing a free service that is of high quality and will serve the majority of the market, and offering a paid service of highest quality aimed at an audience that will be willing to pay for it. Media companies would be wise to emulate this model. There's much danger in locking down all your online content except to those willing to pay.
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Posted 11:16 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Back to the Core
Norbert Specker on business priorities
Resizing — and do we know what that means — comes with benefits. The concentration on core competencies is usually called upon. Like the Swiss Post Office that invested a solid (US)$40 million over the last two years to do something they had no idea of and certainly not the corporate culture necessary: building a general portal (YellowWolrld). The effort was just scrapped and a return to more postal and fulfillment oriented tasks announced. At least somebody is doing that job properly now.
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Posted 11:15 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Back to the Core II
Norbert Specker on passion for content
Gerry McGovern noted last week, while pouring scorn on journalists' shortcomings over Enron, that "content management still has a commodity/volume focus. That's the road to information overload. There has never been a greater need for editors. ..." In the quest to optimize content flow, create content synergies, and monetize content across many channels, the substance-to-noise ratio has reached unimpressive levels, be it in our mailboxes or on many websites. The passion — and compassion — that is a cornerstone of the communications industry (as ad legend Leo Burnett memorably claimed in his 1967 retirement speech) seems to be rather elusive these days.
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Posted 7:38 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
To Support NCAA Gambling, Use PDFs
Steve Outing on basketball championship brackets
Here in the U.S., it's "March Madness" — a.k.a., the NCAA Basketball Championships are under way. Lots of people gamble on the games (especially in office pools), even though the NCAA tries to discourage it. Knowing that gambling is going to happen, you could (I'm not saying you should, now) make it easy for those who wager on the games by publishing a PDF version of the tournament bracket. Lots of office gamblers print the brackets out from the Web or cut out brackets printed in newspapers. As Kurt Foss of Planet PDF points out, with PDF brackets you can give fans a better-resolution copy to fill out and pass around the office. In an article published last week, he tells how. Of course, you know you shouldn't gamble, right?
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Posted 7:18 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Subscriptions and Individual Writers Don't Mix
Norbert Specker on business models
In a follow-up to the recent criticism of Slashdot.org (concerning it paid-subscription offering), Dotcom Scoop's Robert Loch proposes a regularly discussed scheme a la About.com: making writers become micro entrepreneurs and hence ultimately responsible for their traffic — and their income. It's a scheme not to my liking, because just as a shopping mall thrives on the fact that you can get most of what you might need when you need it, a newspaper (online or off) has to make sure it covers the basics, even if some of those basics are a pure cost factor (and even if at this stage there is some disagreement about what the basics are). A Starbucks coffe shop in a mall or in the center of a city is doing much better than a Starbucks on an empty parking lot. Context is the magic word.
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Posted 12:25 PM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Somewhere In Between
Steve Outing on paid vs. free online content
Where are we at on the Web with paid content? Clearly, somewhere in between, as some contrasting headlines this morning indicate. USA Today: "Content Is Still Mostly Free"; Associated Press: "More Websites Charging Access Fees." Meanwhile, more news companies begin to charge for access to their sites. Today's entry: "Times (of London) to Charge for Internet Services."Problem with this: I fear that if the trend toward paid online content continues to accelerate, no one (or at least a very tiny few) will win. If everyone charges, there won't be enough money to go around (that is, money that Web consumers are able or willing to spend) to support every site that wants to charge. We will need some sort of central service that allows consumers to purchase "packages" of content access — so they aren't nickeled and dimed to death by individual paid sites.
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Posted 11:40 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Martha Stewart Cleans House
Jade Walker on dot-com lay-offs
What good are stock options when you're suddenly unemployed? That's the question facing at least 40 people who were laid off last week from the Internet division of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Reuters reported. Last year, the online and direct-mail operation lost $24.8 million.
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Posted 11:26 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
For Wireless Content, They'll Pay
Steve Outing on business models
Most everyone publishing on the Web is having a hard time getting consumers to pay for content. But that won't be the case in the wireless content space. Here's an excerpt from an article by Andrew Darling in the latest issue of MforMobile, an e-newsletter: "Accessing content on the mobile Internet will be a very different approach than it is with the fixed line Internet. Mobile Internet content will not be free — users will pay for content that is of intrinsic value to them personally via micro-payments to their phone bills and online banking mechanisms for larger payments. Entertainment and information management applications may well become the biggest content ideas on the mobile Internet as operators develop both their own, and co-branded content which captures users' imaginations."Wireless content sounds more and more like an area where media companies should be focusing, eh?
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Posted 11:21 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
Expanding Web Design to Accommodate Newcomer
Norbert Specker on online newspapers
The leading quality newspaper of Switzerland, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, had a busy weekend. There of course was the launch of the highly anticipated Sunday newspaper, NZZ am Sonntag. Launching a newspaper is a dicey enterprise at any time. In this case, it also prompted the redesign of the news website (now four columns), to accommodate the new family member. For international readers it might be interesting that the NZZ online now is featuring the English window on the front page. (Disclaimer: I write a bi-weekly column for the new NZZ am Sonntag. Designer of NZZ Online Stephen England also works for Content Summit, which I opearate.)
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Posted 11:08 AM US Eastern Time | perma-link to item below
The Economics of Online Content
Rich Gordon on a thought-provoking scholarly article
"Self-Selection Strategies for Information Goods" (from the online academic journal First Monday) may strike Tidbits readers as economics mumbo-jumbo or a long-winded way to say the obvious. But I found it quite interesting, and very relevant to the new media industry's ongoing discussions of paid content. In the article, Adenekan Dedeke (a management faculty member at Suffolk University in Boston) lays out an economist's framework for thinking about how to price "information goods" and maximize the financial return from them. To grossly simplify his paper, he points out the value of packaging a variety of information products (distinguished by quantity, timeliness, performance quality, etc.) with different price points. Applying his thinking to journalistic content and services, I conclude:[ Discuss THIS item | See ALL Tidbits discussions ]
- For any kind of content, there is some price that some users will be willing to pay.
- The "pay or get nothing" approach adopted by a few newspaper websites is not a good approach, because it yields zero revenue from people willing to pay something less than the non-negotiable subscription price.
- Salon's approach of "tiered content" (different quality/quantity services for different price levels) is the right general approach.
- Understanding what your customers want — and are willing to pay for — is critical. This is impossible without (a) registering your users, (b) asking them what they want, and (c) testing different offers at different prices.
- Media companies with a rich trove of archival content need to figure out how to bundle it with their more current news/information. This may mean including archival access as part of the "tiered content" offerings, or repackaging older content into new forms as the New York Times is doing with photo reprints and books.
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