Slashdot Mirror
Google Will Star In New Dow Jones News Model
An anonymous reader writes "Dow Jones is getting set to launch a new aggregator, akin to Google News, which will charge Web users for access to high-quality journalism. 'The Journal is one of the many newspapers you might buy in one place and with one payment [...] Watch for it,' said Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton. However, rather than posing a threat to Google News, Andrew Keen, author and entrepreneur, says the aggregator will use Google as a critical partner. The only people who should be worried about this new model, says Keen, 'are all those lucky consumers who, over the last 15 years, have been getting their news for free.'"
I think you need to consider the audience that the WJS sells to. Business people do not mind paying for business-oriented content. Look at The Economist, FT, etc for examples along with WSJ.
Meanwhile for general news, NY Times tried the walled garden and it failed.
Great marketing-- The only people who lose out are the consumers! That'll show the bastards!
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Hinton is saying that the only people who shouldn't be happy with his new business plan are the very people he needs to voluntarily pay for his service? Somebody didn't think this through.
...which will charge Web users for access to high-quality journalism.
So... they'll do quality fact checking back to prime sources, not Wikipedia?
And... they'll report conflicts of interest not only among their subjects but with their corporate overlord?
And... they'll report which moneyed interests stand to gain, every time?
And... they'll never ever ever accept paid publicity or promotional materials and report them as news?
And... they'll stop reporting what Britney Spears is doing?
And... they'll never invent another word like Brangelina again?
And... they'll carefully write political copy using neutral, non-loaded words and phrases, without bias?
Color me skeptical...
I would laugh, but it's too farkin' pathetic. "High-quality". Right...
If it wasn't for us, the news would just be bad fiction printed on cheap paper.
Ah yes, that would be so very different.
Dow Jones is getting set to launch a new aggregator, akin to Google News, which will charge Web users for access to high-quality journalism.
Great idea.
The only problem is a complete lack of high quality journalism today.
Since they plan to aggregate instead of provide something new, the idea is dead before it began.
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Wait I didn't realize slashdot was primarily news, the articles are just fluff. The comments are always a better read if you want to read a story.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
No one do anything newsworthy for a week.
We tried that. It backfired when the networks re branded it as reality programming.