Fezmid Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/07/mur...tent/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornerville Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 I say yes. Most bloggers get their opinions and comments from these free sites that have paid journalists, so I have no problem if they want to change 10 cents a day or something to view their entire site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 What a joke. 95% of the "content" on big websites is absolute garbage. Go look at the front page of any 'news' site and you'll find a collection of who-cares celebrity nonsense, stories pimping stupid TV shows, news on the latest missing white girl, or whatever the 'breaking news' is about Miss California. Oh yeah...and all buried beneath an avalanche of flashing ads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornerville Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 What a joke. 95% of the "content" on big websites is absolute garbage. Go look at the front page of any 'news' site and you'll find a collection of who-cares celebrity nonsense, stories pimping stupid TV shows, news on the latest missing white girl, or whatever the 'breaking news' is about Miss California. Oh yeah...and all buried beneath an avalanche of flashing ads. You make valid points, but I bet a lot of that changes with charging for content. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand: It does have some similarity to music: If a reporter for the NY Times writes articles as a profession, and part time bloggers who blog read them and basically take bits and pieces of it and rehash it into their 'own' article, I cannot blame them if they want their piece of the pie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Adams Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 I already pay for the WSJ. I would pay for the NYTimes. Add in CNN and the Philly Inquirer and that's about all I'd pay for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 Don't we already pay for the content when we pay our monthly internet bill? Do you pay extra for CNN on televion? No they make their revenue from advertising and from what I've heard there is an aweful lot of revenue from online ads too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLO Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 Who the hell would want to pay for the misinformation that spews out from Murdoch/News Corp anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 FWIW, I read somewhere that you can subscribe to many newspapers and magazines at a much lower price than the hard copy on the Kindle. I do not have a Kindle and am not sure how good it is. In the same article, there was a suggestion that newspapers are looking at this as a possible solution to their financial woes. At a recent cub scout event for my son, we visited a local community newspaper. The guy at the newspaper asked everyone who subscribed to a newspaper -- any newspaper. Out of 10 families, we were the only ones that subscribed to any paper. That provides some indication where the newspaper business is headed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaGimp Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 I wouldn't pay for sh*t! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 Don't we already pay for the content when we pay our monthly internet bill? Do you pay extra for CNN on televion? No they make their revenue from advertising and from what I've heard there is an aweful lot of revenue from online ads too. You do. But unlike cable companies who pay television networks (like CNN) for the right to carry their programming, ISPs are free and clear when it comes to allowing access to copyrighted content. Hmmmm ... perhaps THAT'S what needs to change. And although there are a few independents somehow managing to make a go of it, online ads aren't paying anyone's salary at anything but the biggest sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly the Dog Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 They have to figure out a reasonable business model. Otherwise the good sites will be going out of business anyway and you won't get it for free. A small yearly fee may work but perhaps not. I always liked the way "Slate" (or maybe it was "Salon") used to do it. If you wanted their content for free, you would have to sit through a 30 second commercial. Once that was over, you had access to the site without commercials for 24 hours, and could come back as many times as you wanted. I thought that was very fair, and you couldn't "skip the commercial". I even found myself watching the commercial when normally I would ignore it, simply because I thought that was a very reasonable solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 You do. But unlike cable companies who pay television networks (like CNN) for the right to carry their programming, ISPs are free and clear when it comes to allowing access to copyrighted content. Hmmmm ... perhaps THAT'S what needs to change. That's what I was alluding to in my normal terrible way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 What a joke. 95% of the "content" on big websites is absolute garbage. Go look at the front page of any 'news' site and you'll find a collection of who-cares celebrity nonsense, stories pimping stupid TV shows, news on the latest missing white girl, or whatever the 'breaking news' is about Miss California. Oh yeah...and all buried beneath an avalanche of flashing ads. The problem is that content is not free. Guys like Tim Graham and John Wawrow don't report on the Bills as a hobby. And sites like TBD do not generate their own content (unless you count our inane posts.) They are an "aggregator", a site built on content from other providers. Sites like TBD, Tahoo, Google News, etc get cost-free benefit from the content generating news organizations like the Buffalo News and ESPN. Back in the old days (late 1990's) when people didn't know what to do with the internet, but everyone felt they had to be a part of it, newspapers, magazines, and pretty much every type of media statred putting content online free of charge. The assumption was that online content would generate its own advertising revenue stream. This proved to be wrong. While national companies use banner ads on huge websites (Yahoo, ESPN, etc.) local advertsers could never wrap their minds around web advertising. They preferred the old fashioned newspaper, TV and radio ads, even though web advertising has the benefit of verified "hits." The current economy only made a bad situation worse. Don't we already pay for the content when we pay our monthly internet bill? Do you pay extra for CNN on televion? No they make their revenue from advertising and from what I've heard there is an aweful lot of revenue from online ads too. ISP's are like the phone company. They just get you on the web. The websites you visit that have aggregated content are the ones that should be paying for that content. But many of them would go out of business if they actually had to pay for content. The idea of micro-payments have been floated around. One problem is that credit card processors do not want to diddle with (literally) nickel-and-dime transactions. But one way or another web news content will have to be paid for by readers online. The good news for newspapers is that online readership is steadily increasing. They just have to find a way to get people and advertisers comfortable enough to let go of news "paper" once and for all. As you can imagine printing and paper are very expensive and wasteful. Traditional ink-and-paper newspapers have to accomplish two goals: 1) figure out a way to get online readers to pay for content that will not be too expensive or intrusive and won't scare readers away, and 2) find a way to get local advertisers to let go of paper ads and move to online versions. I've always said that newspapers need an "analog sunset" like TV is about to have. Just as TV stations are switching to digital broadcasting, newspapers need to get together and agree on a certain "drop dead" date a year from now when all papers will go online-only. Then spend the next year educating people on how they will get content in the digital age: on computers, kindles, iPods, cell phones, etc. There is a reason why freedom of the press is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Without a free press, democracy is not possible. Without reporters asking questions and keeping an eye on government, businesses, school boards, etc, citizens would have no way to receive impartial information, instead only gettng self-serving press relases from such entities. Plus havng only NPR, ABC, Fox News, CNN and a handful of other news organizations is not enough. There needs to be hundreds if not thousands of independent news sources to ensure true press freedom. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 At a recent cub scout event for my son, we visited a local community newspaper. The guy at the newspaper asked everyone who subscribed to a newspaper -- any newspaper. Out of 10 families, we were the only ones that subscribed to any paper. That provides some indication where the newspaper business is headed. Interesting. I'd estimate 75% of our street subscribed to the local paper when I was a paperboy 25-30 years ago ( ). And probably half of them (or more) also got the NYT or WSJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 Instead of each and every website having it's own subscription, I think a better way to is create a "web news passport." It would be an account that online users would place some credit into, say $20, and when you visit a website that account would be deducted from. Each website can set it's own price, from a few pennies per article to a dollar for a day's access. That way readers would not have to manage a hundred subscriptions and remember a hundred passwords. It should be centralized. Just my opinion. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 Interesting. I'd estimate 75% of our street subscribed to the local paper when I was a paperboy 25-30 years ago ( ). And probably half of them (or more) also got the NYT or WSJ. When I moved to SF we were a day late in getting our first delivery of the Chronicle. I walked up and down the halls to see anyone else got their papers. I noticed nobody got their paper. Well I've since realized I'm like the only person on our floor who gets the paper. Now our apartment building is mostly younger people but still I was suprised how few people actually get the paper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 When I moved to SF we were a day late in getting our first delivery of the Chronicle. I walked up and down the halls to see anyone else got their papers. I noticed nobody got their paper. Well I've since realized I'm like the only person on our floor who gets the paper. Now our apartment building is mostly younger people but still I was suprised how few people actually get the paper. I think a lot of it is the culture. I read the paper every day from when I was a teenager (even earlier for sports and comics). I had college classes that required subscribing to the Journal (or to Business Week or other publications). Today? I bet my sister's teenage kids have never read a paper and probably never will. It's all on the web. And IMO, that's hugely damaging to our society since (as noted above), most of the content on the web is pure crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly the Dog Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 When I moved to SF we were a day late in getting our first delivery of the Chronicle. I walked up and down the halls to see anyone else got their papers. I noticed nobody got their paper. Well I've since realized I'm like the only person on our floor who gets the paper. Now our apartment building is mostly younger people but still I was suprised how few people actually get the paper. I'm not sure how true this is, but it seems reasonable. I was told that in very basic terms, the subscription and news stand rates for papers, say fifty cents, basically covered all the actual hard costs of getting the physical paper to your door or vendor. The paper, the ink, the presses, the workers, the delivery trucks, etc. That was kind of a wash for the newspapers as a business. The money to "make" the content, paying for the building, the reporters to write, etc, and all of the profit, was paid for from the ads in the paper, and stuff like classified ads. So, in theory, since they may not have to print a paper any longer, and virtually everyone will get their news online (even though a ton of people really still want to have the physical paper in their hands), you wouldnt need the subscription rates, and it all could be online for free. That's IF the online ad rates would soon approach the old physical paper ad rates. That is not happening, and worse, classified ads are going away because of ebay and craiglist and cars.com, etc, which was a major revenue producer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chef Jim Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 I think a lot of it is the culture. I read the paper every day from when I was a teenager (even earlier for sports and comics). I had college classes that required subscribing to the Journal (or to Business Week or other publications). Today? I bet my sister's teenage kids have never read a paper and probably never will. It's all on the web. And IMO, that's hugely damaging to our society since (as noted above), most of the content on the web is pure crap. I read the paper before I was a teenager too. I got real good at reading one of my customer's Buffalo News and folding it real well so they didn't know I read it before I delivered it. Then when I was no longer a paper boy I would go to the local gas station and read it from one end the the other and put it back on the rack. Damn, I was cheap even then. It's going to be a sad day for us "old farts" when the newspapers go away. That was one of the things I was looking forward to in retirement is spending more time with the paper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted May 7, 2009 Share Posted May 7, 2009 I could care less if a site wants to charge money for full access. If I like the site, I have no problem paying. If I don't like the site, i won't pay for the service I'm more worried about the gov't lifting the moratorium on internet sales tax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts