Would you pay for online news?
I was talking with a pretty switched-on guy over the weekend by name of Dave Moskovitz, who had some interesting thoughts on potential business models for online news.
He made the point that if the price was low, and people were only buying what they wanted, it could work, I think a figure of 2c per article was mentioned.
So if a newspaper costs you $1.50, the same amount spent online would get you 75 stories.
That's probably a little more than you would read on any given day, unless you are a news fiend like me, of course.
If a website were to get 50,000 page impressions on an article, that would generate a cool $1000 for the news outlet.
Outrage! you say? You can get free internet news from a lot of places!
And a good point that is, too, which is why I think this might only work if all the news outlets covering NZ were to start charging at once.
But there's also a certain amount of brand-name recognition and trust involved. If you trust an outlet and enjoy their content, you won't mind paying a couple of cents per article.
Not everyone is a fan of online news, but you can't watch an embedded video or slideshow or listen to a sound-byte in a newspaper, and I think it is only going to get bigger.
There's another interesting system being trialled at Spot.us, which they call "community funded reporting".
The system involves journalists writing a brief for a feature they would like to write, and "pitching" it to website visitors, who then donate a small fee to see it happen.
When it gets enough backing, the journo is paid and the story gets written.
The future of online news is a complex issue which typically generates a lot of debate, and I want to put it to you, Connector readers, and hear your 2 cents on the subject.
Would you pay 2c to read an article online? Or would you boycott a site if they started charging for content? How many individual news articles would you read in a day? Where does the future of online news lie?
Disclaimer: Yes, I work for Stuff which is published by Fairfax Media, but this discussion is in no way indicative of their views in any way, it's just me throwing ideas around.
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I'd consider paying for decent journalism with no ads. Stuff on the other hand, no way.
Ad's don't bother me, it is up to me if I want to click on them. The current and workable Internet model is to assign ads that are relevant to the content.
What annoys me is splitting an article over 2 or more pages, like another online news site does - they could at least state this at the beginning of the article.
No - I would not pay for online news. Rather I would just watch any number of news channels if I feel the need for doom and gloom.
I agree with Paul, the point of Pay TV is supposed to be no ads and even that is no longer 100% true.
If I'm going to have to pay for online news then it would have to be 100% ad free.
I've never been a newspaper reader even though my office buys the Dom Post daily. To be honest I only ready Stuff because it is free and convenient.
As soon as there is a charge for it I will either find another free provider of news or watch it on TV at night. Yes, I accept this makes me a news leech!
The trouble is we're used to getting news for free and immediately.
I agree with #1, cutting all ads would be a good start. Also, it would be great if the service could recognise the user's likes and dislikes and prioritise the news offering accordingly. I would also expect top quality reporting, without some of the dodgy writing and presentation you see on free sites.
I currently read maybe a dozen or so items a day on Stuff, and maybe a few on the BCC (since a ton of things happen in the world that never get reported here).
I don't (and won't) pay for online anything. If it isn't free then forget it. Plus I also have multiple ad blockers active as I really really hate pop-up videos which drain on my limited bandwidth. If stuff tried charging for news items I'd revert to the actual paper edition which is supplied free at work anyway.
Most of my time in stuff now is in the blogs anyway. Although at the rate they're being cancelled there's not very many of them left that I read regularly.
NZ news is mostly rubbish anyway - we're so sheltered here nobody ever has anything serious to report.
World news on the other hand is important to me. But... I can currently get that elsewhere for free. If all the 'big' news agencies start charging for news, there is bound to be 'free' news sprouting up all over the place.
Ads? What are Ads? I haven't seen an Internet Ad in years...
So, no, I won't pay extra for news unless it offers me something useful, like knowing exactly what I want to read and delivering that, without any of the boring stuff (like Entertainment "news", Sport, etc).
I save around $1200 a year by not buying a newspaper or subscribing to a certain pay TV service. I would never pay for content. Worst case I would listen to the radio for free news or wait until I got home to watch the news on TV.
I'd rather just pirate my online news.
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Stop adverts and I would be willing to pay.