Comments on: In defense of metered content

By: What Counts as “Value” on a News Site? / Carpe Media.

What Counts as “Value” on a News Site? / Carpe Media. — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:03:28 +0000

[...] in December, Eat Sleep Publish’s Jason Preston predicted that fervent readers of a given news site would be willing to open up their wallets, if asked [...]

By: How to really save your newspaper — Eat Sleep Publish

How to really save your newspaper — Eat Sleep Publish — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:06:45 +0000

[...] that wall somewhere near the head of the curve, where your most likely paying market exists. I wrote a post about that process already, but in the end it’s going to be a choice that’s different [...]

By: Reflection: Paying for Content « Broadcast Brian

Reflection: Paying for Content « Broadcast Brian — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:28:02 +0000

[...] at least, may lie in adoption of a metered-content approach to online news distribution. Here’s a link to a pithy 3 minute explanation of the [...]

By: Emily Sussman

Emily Sussman — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 06:01:49 +0000

Amen.

By: It’s time to charge money — Eat Sleep Publish

It’s time to charge money — Eat Sleep Publish — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:16:04 +0000

[...] no big deal to offer the plain text free (or you could meter it). That was one of the big problems with TimeSelect – you were paying for text and pictures! [...]

By: Tim Burden

Tim Burden — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:29:06 +0000

Here’s an (I think) obvious set of criteria to determine what could reasonably be kept behind a pay wall. First, the content doesn’t help with Google visibility. E.g. video, audio, Flash etc. Content that can’t be spidered, in other words. Second, the content was expensive – rather, more expensive – to produce than the regular fare. For most papers, video probably goes in that category.

And here’s an easy way to see who your ‘engaged readers’ are. They’re the ones who have signed up for your forums or to comment on stories and do it often. When they are signed in, should you advertise differently to them than you do to those who are ‘just eyeballs’ visiting from a Google search? Of course you should.

By: Notes from a Teacher - Tuesday squibs

Notes from a Teacher - Tuesday squibs — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:35:26 +0000

[...] In defense of metered content. I’m not one of those to off-handedly write off the idea of newspapers charging fees for more frequent users. I think there’s something to Jason Preston’s arguments. [...]

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 03:18:22 +0000

I think this model for ESPN does at least try to monetize special news information a little bit. I certainly do not think the revenue is significant for ESPN but I guess it’s better to capture a little bit rather than none at all.

The model still seems to heavily favor content for free and get as many eyeballs on the website as possible. Companies still are paying for ads on popular websites and I think that revenue is more than what could be generated by charging each reader $6.95 per month.

By: Jason Preston

Jason Preston — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:16:52 +0000

It’s true that throughout history advertisers have borne the brunt of the cost of providing news. That’s not likely to change.

What you’re talking about with ESPN sounds really smart to me. There are a lot of people who would be willing to pay for certain kind of stats manipulation – say, people who play in a fantasy basketball league for money.

I think they’ve found a tribe, as you put it.

Sooner or later newspapers are going to follow the leaders and start charging for certain access and features, and I think they’ll discover a public that is not as unwilling to pay as they expect.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:30:12 +0000

What you’re describing does exist in one form. ESPN does this with their ESPN Insider product. They used to have 100% free news on the ESPN website. Then in 1999, they launched ESPN Insider. It is providing their loyal sports fans the inside scoop, stuff behind the scenes. Then back in 2002 ESPN started to give away ESPN Insider for free to all the people that subscribed to ESPN the Magazine. While I am a pretty avid sports fan and have been playing fantasy sports for the last 14 years, I’m not willing to pay for that kind of information. I have been finding my inside sports news on other websites. Even with ESPN Insider’s new pricing model, which provides steep discounts with a 2 year subscription at only $2.50/mo (regular price is $6.95/mo) is not enough to get me to want to pay for that information.

News appears to be a commodity. The big providers of news like CNN and BBC have giant advertising deals which allows them to provide the articles on their website for free. So someone is paying for news, it’s just not the readers.

The Internet breaks the distribution model, it’s basically free minus the cost of bandwidth to your house or office. I guess if people really felt they had compelling content then they would start charging for it and hope they can build a tribe of people that want to pay for it.