Charging for Online Content?
Thursday, May 7th, 2009I read a fascinating article today about Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for content on News Corp. websites within a year in a move that could start a much larger trend. Or it could totally backfire. Who knows.
A few choice quotes from the CNN.com article:
We are now in the midst of an epochal debate over the value of content and it is clear to many newspapers that the current model is malfunctioning.
Agreed, though these malfunctions aren’t for the reason you might assume (the death of print).
The people who are placing a low value on online content aren’t the readers - clearly they value content because they spend time consuming it - it’s actually the advertisers. If online ad revenues can’t support decent web content, it’s because advertisers haven’t recognized that’s where the eyeballs are. For years people said newspaper subscription sales just barely covered actual printing costs while ad sales covered everything else (paying reporters, etc.). By that logic, if print costs go to zero (online), shouldn’t subscriptions be free? Bottom line: major advertisers need to shift their budgets online and pay reasonable rates for display ads.
The current days of the Internet will soon be over.
Wow, that’s a bold statement but that’s what makes him Rupert Murdoch. The internet landscape is constantly shifting - who would have predicted that social networking would have stayed so hot for so long…
(Murdoch) said 360,000 people had downloaded an iPhone WSJ application in three weeks. Users would soon be made to pay “handsomely” for accessing WSJ content, he added.
Yikes, paying “handsomely” sounds a little evil. Then again, News Corp. is simply playing by the internet rules established thus far: entice a huge user base with free stuff, then (try to) start charging once they’re hooked. WSJ is a pretty big franchise with valuable content so I suspect they will be successful in monetizing mobile content. MySpace (another News Corp. brand), on the other hand, will probably have a difficult time convincing users to pay for content. Ever.
Only time will tell if “the current days of the internet days will soon be over”… stay tuned!
