Free News

[Vidor06]

I saw the CEO of Google on the telly this afternoon extolling the virtue of free news. This comes in the light of Murdoch and News International beginning to charge for some of their newspaper sites.

So the question is simple, are you prepared to pay for your online news?

I for one no longer buy newspapers as they are essentially yesterdays news. I make daily use of the BBC News site and also fairly regularly visit the Times and Guardian websites. If the Times start charging for their site I will simply stop using it. I cannot see a time when I would ever pay to view the news when I can watch it for free through the BBC website.

 

[Norm]

I agree. Murdoch is trying to make the business model for on-line news provision profitable and he doesn't have the imagination, IMO, to think of anything other than making people pay per view.

The BBC is a pain, as they use a very basic geo-ip method to verify the readers' locations. Because my company link through our US office, when I view the Beeb's site, they think I'm sitting in Boston MA rather than the Home Counties, so I get bombarded with adverts (adblocker is your friend) and can't view videos or anything on the iPlayer. A pathetically blinkered view, showing that The Corporation's mentality hasn't changed much.

However, consider also the broader picture. Even if the Times, the Guardian and the Beeb did start charging, then you'd just get your news fix from the New York Times or the Sydney Herald or the Norwich Evening News. It's a global market and "local papers" like the Times (which is local in internerd terms) have nothing unique to offer to encourage people to pay.

The model would be different for something like The Economist, which might be worth a subscription if it wasn't so damned expensive!

I still don't like what Google are doing, though, creating a news organisation from a business model which has no reporters, few costs to collect and collate the news but which is reaping the commercial benefits of selling the information.

 

[Ghost Donkey]

I would ever pay to view the news when I can watch it for free through the BBC website.

When you say it's free...

But I get your point. I like channel 4 news and newsnight if I can catch them. I also make use of the BBC website and consider it free from that point of view. You don't need a tv licence to look at the website.

 

[Tollers]

I agree. Murdoch is trying to make the business model for on-line news provision profitable and he doesn't have the imagination, IMO, to think of anything other than making people pay per view.

The BBC is a pain, as they use a very basic geo-ip method to verify the readers' locations. Because my company link through our US office, when I view the Beeb's site, they think I'm sitting in Boston MA rather than the Home Counties, so I get bombarded with adverts (adblocker is your friend) and can't view videos or anything on the iPlayer. A pathetically blinkered view, showing that The Corporation's mentality hasn't changed much.

However, consider also the broader picture. Even if the Times, the Guardian and the Beeb did start charging, then you'd just get your news fix from the New York Times or the Sydney Herald or the Norwich Evening News. It's a global market and "local papers" like the Times (which is local in internerd terms) have nothing unique to offer to encourage people to pay.

The model would be different for something like The Economist, which might be worth a subscription if it wasn't so damned expensive!

I still don't like what Google are doing, though, creating a news organisation from a business model which has no reporters, few costs to collect and collate the news but which is reaping the commercial benefits of selling the information.

- IP based geo-location is pretty much the industry norm. I don't think it's pathetically blinkered at all.
- Ads support the free-internet. We have to monetise somehow and products such as ad-blocker will only guarantee that subscription (or other) revenue models will become neccessary.
- You're right. Competition is rife and any subsciption model would have to compete with other business models that may be able to use news as a loss-leader into other revenue streams.
- You said that Murdoch doesn't have the imagination....hmm, i'd say what he's doing is a very very brave move that takes a lot of imagination. It could change the world! Thinking more conventionally, i'd also add that within his business empire, their proposition doesn't really give a lot of options. This leads me to my next point......
- Google is in a very powerfull position! Be afraid, be very afraid!
- Interstingly The Guardian have just released a paid iPhone app. It only costs a few quid, but its an interesting move. Perhaps mobile evolution and computer/mobile convergence will move towards an easier acceptance of paid for online content?

Tollers (Online Monetisation Specialist)

p.s Great question Vidor.....im going to watch this thread

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I get all my news from you lot. And occasionally Private Eye and Radio 4.

 

[Fnaar]

I saw the CEO of Google on the telly this afternoon extolling the virtue of free news. This comes in the light of Murdoch and News International beginning to charge for some of their newspaper sites.

So the question is simple, are you prepared to pay for your online news?

I for one no longer buy newspapers as they are essentially yesterdays news. I make daily use of the BBC News site and also fairly regularly visit the Times and Guardian websites. If the Times start charging for their site I will simply stop using it. I cannot see a time when I would ever pay to view the news when I can watch it for free through the BBC website.

Ditto all roond... I like it on the occasions when I do buy a paper (used to read 2 a day at one time) but for me the web has taken its place. I won't pay for it unless there are no free sources It has to be funded somehow, I guess, but there's far too much rubbish in even the 'qualidee' papers now, so stuff 'em

 

[Globalti]

Newspapers? Only good for one thing really:

 

[accountantpete]

It's part of a wider move to try and generate money from the internet - but will fail because the provision of news is not restricted and someone will always undercut the price or offer it for free.

This is what the internet is all about

This is an industrial bearing which costs about £3 posted. However in the cycling world you attach the words Bearing For Campagnolo Ultra Torque System and flog them for £20!

 

[rich p]

I'm an old school newspaper person. You don't get the in-depth reportage online IMO.

 

[Aperitif]

Lucky you rich - my school only published a magazine once a year.

 

[snakehips]

You don't get the in-depth reportage online IMO.

I think you can get a more in-depth view online. The BBC website articles usually have links to their archive material which can provide background /history in a way that newspapers may not , and TV news hardly ever does.

Snake


My Library

 

[Norm]

Tollers (Online Monetisation Specialist)

Interesting stuff, Tollers, we're in very similar industries.

I call geo-IP pathetically blinkered because there is no way round it. It doesn't relate to reality, it is a massive uncompromising sledgehammer which blocks people with no adjudication or right of appeal. Why should people be banned from so much BBC content, for instance, as a result of the IT strategy of their employers? Why should someone who travels on business not be able to select their home location for news results, rather than being it being dictated by some programmer based on their hotel. If I'm travelling in Finland, I don't give a stuff about the local news for northern Finland, I want to know how things are in Berkshire. If that's the industry standard, the industry needs to address it pretty quickly.

You are right about Adblocker but very few people use it and I only have it active when I'm at work.

IMO, Murdoch doesn't have imagination because he has reverted to the "charge for it" business model which he feels comfortable pursuing. Good luck to him (Norm lied!) but I don't think it will work.

I am reducing my own usage of Google and refuse to run anything which might generate it some revenue, such as Google phones, browsers, OS's etc. Any company which needs to tell its staff to Be Good is worrying.

I've paid for news delivery apps in the past. The dim and distant past, that is, reading stuff on Palm OS products. Downloading content which I have requested so that I can read it offline is not the same as going up against the likes of the BBC for online news delivery.

IMO, of course.