The future of newspapers online
by Stii
Newspapers love to hate the internet. It sees it as its nemesis and rightly so, since it has such a free and sharing culture. No news are safe. It can easily be copied and redistributed by other users making it very difficult for newspapers online to monetize the news. They can try and go the legal route, but that has a more negative result.
Photo credit: http://mcfarlaneusa.wordpress.com/
In my opinion, there are two ways newspapers can monetize their online offering.
The first obvious way is advertising. Yes, it may not rake in the cash the same way that print ads did in the past, but that does not matter as it would bring in a little money and it would greatly influence the second choice.
The second option is through a subscription model. Before you get your knickers in a knot and shout “dumb idea, would never work!”, hear me out.
Gerd Leonhard often says:
Stop trying to sell the copy. The copy is worthless. Sell the things around the copy.
This is why a subscription model might just work, but news sites would have to get very, very clever. They would have to build services around news that would make people pay for the service. Sorry, but the news on it’s own is simply not enough. How would they do it? I have a couple of ideas. I’ll keep them to myself for now, since, well, some of it will be implemented in Afrigator in due time, so be patient! One feature would be to remove all the flashy ads if a user subscribes. Making the first option (ads) complimentary to a subscription model, won’t you say?
I love The Hub and the concept behind it. It is a step in the right direction and it is a very real experience that could possibly enhance your news consumption. It would be possible monetize at some stage.
Maybe if the papers do it clever enough, they could release full feeds instead of partial feeds so we could try and build onto the value add… Just a thought. What do you think?
I think it’s a grand idea, but I can tell you from experience of working at a newspaper, that trying to get managers to change their models and embrace the Internet is no easy task! What we really need is new, younger peeps in management level with fresh ideas and a good grasp of the online environment to take newspapers to the next level. Or to at least keep them alive …
You’re so right, dude, so right. It is sad that this is the situation since the world cannot turn without news and it would be to everyone’s advantage if they we’re innovative rather than stubborn… Maybe there is hope in news24!
‘Tis all about choice for me. Don’t take away the ads automatically; give me the choice to remove it if I want to. But yeah, me likey the idea.