A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{June 4, 2009}
How much will YOU pay to read online news? _{By Ashley}

Back in April, I wrote about newspapers charging for their online content. After reading summaries of The American Press Institutes “Newspaper Economic Action Plan”, I still stand with my feelings that I don’t feel confident it will succeed (yet). I just want to touch on the main points discussed in the 31 page report, which you can find in full here, and give you some of my thoughts.

Right off the bat, the report says that industry leaders should follow 5 new “doctrines”:

• True Value. Establish that news content online has value by charging for it. Begin “massive experimentation with several of the most promising options.”

• Fair Use. Maintain the value of professionally produced and edited content by “aggressively enforcing copyright, fair use and the right to profit from original work.”
• Fair Share. Negotiate a higher price for content produced by the news industry that is aggregated and redistributed by others.
• Digital Deliverance. “Invest in technologies, platforms and systems that provide content-based e-commerce, data-sharing and other revenue generating solutions.”
• Consumer Centric. Refocus on consumers and users. Shift revenue strategies from those focused on advertisers.

Ok, fair enough. Those are all practical and insightful rules to live by…and plausible. Moving on…here is how they propose they will be paid (as summed up in bold by Rick Edmonds).

Focus on “core loyalists,” lose “fly-by users

If I had to guess, I’d say well over 50% of users are “fly-by users” opposed to the “core loyalists”. Most people who log on to an online news site, are looking for something in particular. Once they find it, they log off and often times don’t come back. Or users are sent there via a link pushed out by another source (whether it be Twitter, blog, etc.). I end up at newspaper websites from around the world this way and will likely never revisit them.

Paid content wall would protect print subscriptions

The report claims that putting up a paid content wall would prevent readers from canceling their print subscriptions. It says that 22% of people dropped the printed version due to the fact they can get it all online for free. Wouldn’t a more logical approach be if you have a print subscription, you are able to access free online content? That’s not mentioned though. Their mentality seems to be very “take! take! take! mine! mine!”

Pressure Google

Thou that controls all… Google. The report concedes that 25-35% of traffic to news Web sites comes from the search giant and its Google News. So why wage war on them? The API wants to bring pressure on Google from several directions to “reinstate value along the supply chain, from the creation of content, through its harvesting and presentation.”

Kindle offers limited revenue potential, duplicates print audience

First the report says, “Publishers are coming out on the wrong end of the partnership with Amazon, which takes 70 percent of the subscription revenue,” plus most ad revenue plus republication rights. Well duuuh, the publishers knew this before entering into any kind of agreement with Amazon. No is forcing them to offer services on Kindle; and besides, it’s better than nothing.

The report also says that more than half of Kindle buyers are over 50 (I found that fact interesting), so usage tends to duplicate the existing print newspaper demographic rather than capturing a younger or a non-traditional audience.

My advice to the API: Get a better plan before presenting it next time. I don’t think they have any grounds to stand on so far. There will always be the bloggers, tweeters, etc. of the world who will produce newsworthy content… and faster than you. I’d also like to see what kind of number$ they are talking about when discussing charging, a penny an article? A dollar? I think this will make a huge difference for a lot of readers as well.

Filed under: Media News — Tags: american press institute, api, newspapers, online content, recession — @ 4:51 pm

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