More Online Publishers Inching Toward Paid Content

mattmcal writes "TheStreet.com reported its first quarterly profit with $18 million of its $26 million in revenues coming from subscriptions. WSJ.com is now up to 686,000 online subscribers. Several publishers have failed to build successful paid models in the past, such as the San Jose Mercury News, but subscription revenue is crucial during ad market dips. More and more publishers are testing these waters now that the evidence of success has become real. Washingtonpost.com and Media Guardian UK both announced recently they will require registration. This may be just the beginning of a mad rush to drop a registration gate on the major news sites."

Comments

Not necessarily all bad

[Sad Loser]

This may not be a complete disaster, as a it will provide a stimulation to the micropayment technologies, which could be useful to subsidise low cost environments such as open source content projects e.g. wikipedia.

The marginal cost to the really big (Fox, CNN) and/or publicly funded institutions (BBC) of providing web-based news is probably pretty low, and it is effectively a loss leader to bring people into their portal, so there is not really an incentive to charge, so I don't think free general news is disappearing any time soon.

Re:Today's wild business idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you could just go to the library and read the paper for free.

News and Micropayments

[CrystalCut]

This is where I see micropayments being very valuable. Few users are going to want to pay $20.00 a month, if they only want to read 10% of the content on a news site. Every time I access a news site and am prompted to give over $5.00 for each archive article, I flinch. That's just too much.As a long time (and satisfied) Pay Pal user, I love using Pay Pal to submit small payments, but so far few online merchants accept such payments.

As someone who reads through news every single day of the year, I'd love an option to offer small payments for content that I specifically want. If I was paying $5.00 for each news article I convert to a PDF, I'd be broke in no time. Slashdot has talked about micropayments before.

The value must be there first

[SnakeStu]

Before a content site decides to put up any kind of barrier to getting the content, they'd better make sure the value will drive people past the barrier.

An example comes to mind in the local news scene... I used to visit one of the Web sites for a local TV station as a way to keep informed about local events. Their content was "pretty good" -- better, as I saw it then, than their competitors. Then they started requiring registration... it was free, but they wanted your personal info. I turned away and haven't gone back -- the value of their content was not sufficient to push me past the privacy barrier.

One of the reasons I've been hesitant to use any revenue-related barriers in the Open Music Registry is because I don't think the value would support it, for the site as it is now. So, until I have the time to build in features that people might pay for (if that ever happens), I have to hope for donations and ad click-throughs.

Sites will learn true value of what they offer

[Lord_Dweomer]

I think that this was inevitable. Sites saw other sites raking in the money with subscriptions, so they will inevitably attempt to do it. However, not all content is created equal. There are many sites that attempt to charge a premium for content *cough*IGN*cough* when the content is not worth it, because a million other websites off the same or better for free.

However, I'm sure many websites could get away with it either because their target audience has the cash to drop on it, or they need the service bad enough. Like it or not, I'm sure the NYTimes could make their site subscription only (or only if you have a regular paper subscription with them) and people would still sign up.

My grudge with IGN is that they decided to charge for their bad reviews and images/movies. There are god knows how many other gaming sites out there offering the same things for free. And lets face it, gamers don't usually have money to drop on a website subscription (they'd rather put it towards a game).

Some websites decide not to be greedy and have found a near perfect balance of content vs. price. Take www.Freshlymixed.com for example. An excellent site and the best site to download Essential Mixes from Radio 1 on (among other mixes). For signing up for free, you get to use bit torrent and download the three most recent Essentail Mixes, but only on weekends. For paying like, $2/month you get access to their archive whenever you want. There are other payment options too. They decided not to be greedy, and guess what? They're probably making MORE money because of it! There will always be that certain point where if you charge more, you'll make less money because you'll simply get less customers.

Re:This is where things are headed

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't providing revenue for them, why should they care if you stop visiting?

It's nice to pretend that all these sites exist solely for our benefit, but they don't. They have to make money somehow, and if advertising doesn't cut it, how many other options are there?

I appreciate sites like CNN, Yahoo, etc letting me view their content free. But I don't feel that I'm entitled to their content, because, of course I'm not.

Re:This is where things are headed

[tornado2258]

Newpapers on paper spend money on finding out what their reader demographic is and which stories people like and want more of etc. With printed papers this is done by doing surveys of random people and hoping that they are indicative of the whole. Marketing people get a warm and fuzzy feeling when they realised that the internet allows them to get information about everyone that uses the service.

How this plays out in the future is up to the public at large. If most people aren't actually worried about what information they give away and how much the sites track them then the companies will track them. If most people instead choose the anonymous options then those demanding info will disappear.

I can't decide myself which I prefer. On one hand I'm not particularly worried that the people writing the news know which stories I actually read, cause this will mean that there is more chance of future stories being of interest to me. But on the other hand I sometimes have to don my tinfoil hat and worry about what kind of things they might be infering from my choice in news stories or which jokes I read etc nad who they might share this info with.

The Gate

[fm6]

Washingtonpost.com and Media Guardian UK both announced recently they will require registration. This may be just the beginning of a mad rush to drop a registration gate on the major news sites.

No, if they were going to start charging, they'd just go ahead and do it. Registration has other purposes, mainly to show advertisers that you have a large and diverse audience.

Some newsppaper sites have indeed started charging for some of their content. But I don't think that this means a shift back to the subscription model, which never did generate enough revenue to matter. More likely, they want to raise the apparent value of content they syndicate to other newspapers.

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I'll say it again: online content won't succeed until you can pay for it as you consume it. Yes, I mean Micropayments. Lots of pundits have fancy reasons why micropayment can't work, but nobody really knows, because nobody's really tried it.

/. doing its part

[Anonymous Coward]

With daily repeated references to NYT, and almost as frequent references to WashPost, /. story submitters are certainly doing there part to help out the big media cartels.

No problem. The cartels can't ignore Google. And I can get their stories through Google News. Better yet, virtually none of the media cartels are original anymore. They exist as mere web content providers for AP, UPI, Reuters. Plus a few local/capitol reports thrown in to throw the scent off. The good part about this is if any of the registration sites regurgitate a news story from one of the wires, it is also picked up by thousands of regional and local news sites, the vast majority of which don't require registration. The same goes for the few original "news" pieces they report on. The thousands of other sites pick it up for their local editions, and the content is still available without registering.

Google News is your friend. And the friend of freedom, by freeing information, instead of attempts to control information as it comes out of NYT, WashPost, and others.

And WashPost doesn't render in my browser correctly anyway. The main column is still offset about 800 pixels to the right, forcing me to scroll over.

The only real informational value coming from the NYT and the WashPost anyway is to document the bias of the two outlets, made easier when comparing their headlines, first paragraphs, and top of fold stories against the rest of the media outlets on Google News.

Registration? No biggie. Go here (and read the same story from different sources) for a more balanced view.

Some /. readers will always opt for the blue pill. Some will wake up. Which are you?

Difference Between WSJ and Washington Post

[tabdelgawad]

There are important differences between the services offered by the Wall Street Journal online and the Washington Post online that would allow the first to charge a subscription and the second not to. The WSJ offers relatively unique business-specific information and has no close competitors. Their news and analysis are essential to conducting business, at least in the US. By contrast, the Washington Post offers excellent coverage of general news, but with many close substitutes such as the NYT, CNN, and the BBC among others. Some of those competitors unlikely to ever charge an online subscription (CNN, BBC), so the Washington Post can't either (isn't it nice when competition works?)

It's all about demand elasticity. The freely available NYT charges a fee to access their archived articles because those who use that service are typically involved in some research project, and their demand for information is inelastic (not too many substitutes for the NYT's extensive archives). On the other hand, The for-pay WSJ makes its editorial content available for free at opinionjournal.com, because nobody would pay to read editorials; as they say, opinions are like a-holes, everybody's got one.

Entirely Separate Services

[cribcage]

Im already paying to get online, why should i have to pay for content as well?

I'm sure you're trolling, but since it's often asked: Because you're paying two people (or companies) for two entirely different services.

When you pay your ISP $9.95 per month, you buy a connection to the internet. Your ISP makes no guarantee about what you'll find on the internet. They provide connections, not content. If you're a dedicated Slashdot reader who doesn't visit any other websites, and Slashdot closes down, do you expect your ISP to refund your subscription? Of course not. They didn't promise that Slashdot would be online. They only promised that you would be.

For that matter, why not carry your question in the other direction? Your ISP connects your computer to someone else's content. If you think your ISP fee should entitle you to free content, then shouldn't it also entitle you to a free computer? You might as well say, "I'm already paying to get online. Why should I have to pay Apple for this new PowerBook, too?"

crib

Seriously: What's the Objection, Exactly?

[cribcage]

I swear, I'm not trolling. Seriously.

Every time a NYTimes story is posted to Slashdot, it's accompanied by a slew of quips and complaints about registration. In the comments below, myriad people have griped about registration for the LATimes, the Washington Post, and other news sites.

Can someone offer a reasonable explanation why these registrations are so bad? They're not particularly invasive. They're free. They allow random, blatantly false information to be given. So what's the problem?

I think it's amazing that I can read the NYTimes every day, free. Same goes for those other newspapers and websites. If the Wall Street Journal was free, I'd be happy to fork over my name and address to read it online. I don't understand the general objection: You can spend a dollar daily and read it on paper, or you can give your name -- or ANY name -- and read it online free, for years.

How is that a rip-off?

crib