Story Review

Some time this month, I’m not sure when exactly but I’d bet on last Thursday, the websites of the Times and the Sunday Times went paid. The move had been planned months ago and by then everybody with an opinion on the matter had expressed it.

Everybody but me, that is; and what better excuse to blog about journalism again after a three-month hiatus?

Consumers would generally like to see Murdoch fail because it is in their interest to get news free rather than pay for it. The media, on the other hand, are (quietly) hoping he will succeed and pave the industry’s way out of what seems to be its biggest, and quite prolonged, slump in history.

It could go either way, but if you judge by what people are saying, it is much more likely to fail. Among those with an opinion there is a great, and loud, majority that maintains people will never pay for something they can get free elsewhere; while the few who think the experiment may prove successful are saying so in a muffled voice.

I think this paywall could work and I think it could work for other big media brands as well.

There is one type of people that will pay for Times content not because they want to read it but because they have to. As long as the printed newspaper is recognised as an important  influence on public opinion, everybody who is doing something involving global, European or British media monitoring will have to include the Times just to make sure their monitoring is comprehensive. That includes PR types, various analysts and even students doing research for uni. People will read the Times because it is their job to read it and tell other people what it says about their products, services, brands, lawsuits and personal lives.

Many of those users will be getting Times content through channels other than the website. But that’s ok, because a) News Intl will get royalties on that usage and b) one of the biggest aggregators of third-party content, Dow Jones Factiva, is owned by News Intl.

In March 2010 the Times had 20.42m unique users a month. In preparation for cutting off free access it’s stopped reporting traffic figures, but staff are said to have been told to expect a fall by 90% as a result from the paywall. That will leave it with 2.042m unique users a month. Say each one of those only pays the 1 GBP charged for daily access, though psychology suggests most will be tempted to pay 2 GBP for a week, even if they do not come back to the website in this period. That’s 2.042m GBP a month, or 24.5m GBP a year. The Times’ online ad revenues are thought to have been 15m-18m GBP a month before the introduction of the paywall.

Ads, much more targeted now that the audience is smaller and thus more clearly defined, will also contribute to the top line as will royalties from re-distributors, spurred by the unavailability of the content online.

The question is: are there 2.042m people out there who must read the Times at least once a month whether they like it or not? There just might be.

Links for February 12, 2010 to March 31, 2010:

• 10 words I’d ban from all websites – iMediaConnection.com -
• The Biggest List Of Google Adsense Alternatives On The Net – For the webmasters who are either not accepted into the AdSense program, or do not want to use Adsense ads, the following Google Adsense alternatives will be worth having a look. The list contains more than 170 adsense alternative sources which contains everything from CPM, CPA, CPL, CPC, Shopping networks, Contextual ad programs and affiliate networks.
• How to display Google AdSense Ads in Tumblr? – Many tumblr users ask this question “Is there a way to post Google AdSense Ads on tumblr?” Yes, there is a way to post adsense ads in your tumblr blog. You can copy the AdSense code into your tumblr theme template.
• Make Your Own Sign Generator! Your Text On An Any Image You Choose. Stamp, Mark And Tag The World Around You. – The name says it all, actually.
• iSpring Solutions – Make animated presentations and add your voice to them. Also, some additional stuff for Pro subscribers.

These may have been suggested already, but I haven’t seen them. And I’m wondering why.

- A Twitter client. Actually *the* Twitter client. The only one that’s official. This could be a hard sell on computers, but an iPhone app could have some legs.

- Private Twitters. It’s an official communication tool now, so why not use it for internal corporate communication? A space where your tens of thousands of employees can tweet among themselves without privacy worries.

- Tweets. Twenty a day should be enough for everyone to tell people what they ate, show off their cat and rant about a public service. Those who would also like to live tweet, hype or spam will have to pay. This one I’m not entirely comfortable with, what with all the democracy that’s been going on on Twitter. But after all… Am I a cold, heartless capitalist bastard or what?

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

@alisongow asked if she could search her Twitter favourites for a specific tweet.

The Twitter favourites search ninja says

Yes, she can. However, Twitter search is no use in this case. @alisongow should go to her Favourites on twitter.com, get the RSS feed for them and subscribe to it in Google Reader. There, she can search that feed in Google Reader. Hay-ya!

Ninja picture by orvaratli.