Hey Murdoch, get on with charging for news already
Some newspapers and some news organisations will not adapt to the digital realities and they will fail.
- Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp
Thus far all of Murdoch’s threats could be have been implemented yesterday, so if he is serious about the payment model why doesn’t he justdo it already.
It started earlier this year when Murdoch announced that enough was enough, it was time to screw over News Corp’s readers. I claimed back then it was a surefire way for News Corp to fall into obscure irrelevance and I stand by these comments.
Quite frankly I believe News Corp are completely aware of this and it’s the main reason they haven’t gone ahead with their subscription plans.
It’s certainly not a technological barrier stopping the roll out. News Corp have been successfully charging for niche financial news with the Wall Street Journal for a while now.
Replicating the WSJ subscription model across News Corp’s range of websites should take a week at most. I believe the reason this hasn’t started yet is simply due to the fact Murdoch’s sales team haven’t been able to gauge how much to charge Australian’s to access online twitter updates, Flickr photo galleries and Youtube video compilations.
I’ll go ahead and save you guys millions in R&D, the answer is $0.
Shortly after the original announcement by Murdoch, he then threatened Google stating he’d remove all content from their search results.
Google pretty much turned around and said well the technology’s been there since 1926 so if you want to, go ahead.
Removing your content from Google couldn’t be easier, you simply insert a robots.txt file into the root directory of your website and it’s done. But no, instead of quietly going about his business we had to endure press releases and a whole lot of empty threats.
Then there was the announcement that Microsoft were going to pay News Corp for exclusive rights to have their news show up on Bing.
Nobody uses Bing so once again we had yet another episode of hollow threats and press releases from Murdoch.
The latest development has come from Google itself with the announcement that they are going to introduce a “First Click Free” program.
The basic idea is that if you enter a news site via a search engine, the news site has the option of limiting the amount of indexed pages you can view (between 1 and 5) before you are required to register and/or subscribe.
Although I disagree this service is going to work it amazes me that it”s Google is the one bringing actual innovative ideas to the table.
As for the idea itself, whilst anything over Rupert’s rambling is a welcome change I remember back when the Washington Post (I think) it was started asking users to register back in the late 90′s.
Being an avid news junkie back then and due to the infant stage online news, especially Australian online news was at back then, the Post was referenced quite frequently in online forums as a news source.
After they implemented the sign up requirement (which was free, we weren’t even talking about payment here), they were dropped like hotcakes and I imagine readership numbers must have plummeted.
Time and time again internet users have shown they do not want to sign up, even for free, to access news and yet here we are with the news industry trying to tell us the complete opposite.
Sort of like how consumers don’t want DRM free digital music on their portable listening devices, right music industry?
So far we’ve had nothing but sabre rattling from News Corp itself whilst both Bing and Google have stepped up to the plate and shown they can adapt to changing times.
After months of stalling despite the tech being readily available and easy to implement, technological innovation and advancement are something I feel News Corp are clearly incapable of.
Ultimately this will lead to their demise as a publisher and honestly it can’t happen soon enough.
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:56 am Daniel(Quote)
And then you’ve got balls-ups like this, when news.com.au declared Hockey to be the new Liberal leader, which have people wondering why they would pay for News Ltd content.
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Oh you’ll pay for it because “high quality reliable news and information does not come free”.
One of the articles I referenced had a pretty blatant grammatical error (a crucial word was missing from a sentence) which I resisted using to take a pot shot at them.
Not to mention the current top story is about $12 trendy coffees…
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm James(Quote)
They’ve gotta pay their staff somehow!
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/nvc-article/tell-us-it-aint-true-mercury/
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 pm Roly(Quote)
People who have been a lot closer to Murdoch than I, seem to have the same opinion that he is still living in a time warp.
The reason that he hasn’t ‘just done it’ is because he has no better idea than you or I how to actually make it work. A while back the SMH introduced registration for more than an article or two. It didn’t last twelve months, and that was “free” (if you don’t count the loss of reader privacy and potential for spam). This is the ‘first view free’ model and they couldn’t even get readers to register, much less pay.
And it’s a fair question what value-added we (or their advertisers) are paying for. News headlines come up in my mailer screen, but they, and even Google News, are mostly ambulance-chasing trivia. When I want credibility and in-depth I go to the ABC (and a big hat tip to Liz Jackson on her richly-deserved award).
Quite a while back Robinson interviewed Packer, Murdoch, and his boss Stokes (who he didn’t spare). This series of interviews left me with the impression Packer(snr) had heard of the internet (like he had heard of Yo-Yo’s), Murdoch had people working on it, while Stokes had Google on his desktop.
Two out of three were internet-deniers, and Murdoch like the RIAA thinks he can stuff the genie back in the bottle. If Gates can’t dominate the net then Murdoch is dreamin’.
The fact is, most of the ambulance-chasing could be replaced by citizen-journalists with a cellphone (with about the same accuracy), a good swadge is rehashed PR releases (effectively spam), and there is some in-depth commentary and investigative reports that is experienced and connected (e.g. Michelle Grattan this week) which IS worth paying for and supporting, but it’s only a tiny proportion of the whole. So-called “sausage journalists”, people who wrote without byline and were used literally by the column inch, have already been blogging for some time.
As with the music publishing industry, the only thing we can be really sure of is that the old business model isn’t working any more, and nobody has any real idea of what, if anything, will replace it. Apart from Sony virusing a bunch of their CD’s, and that with *pirated* code, the stance seems to be head in sand until the internet/digital revolution goes away.
Both music and news have a valid point about needing income from their products, but to claim that every download is a full lost sale is disingenuous because people download tracks available for free that they would never actually buy. For many their downloading vastly exceeds their total buying capacity and if these downloads were prevented it couldn’t possibly translate into anything like an equal number of full price sales.
The problem with free access being “theft” in cyberspace is the unique Magic Pudding effect where the item is *replicated* rather than *transferred*. Is it still “theft” if you can replicate my car without disadvantage to me? It may be some sort of moral wrong, but it sure as hell isn’t “theft” in the normal sense of the word.
When the world switched from horses to engines the buggy whip manufacturers were in deep trouble. Now the music and news industries have to deal with their own Future Shock, or simply evaporate.
@Daniel
I remember The Herald having to claw back early editions annoucing the Coalition had won a Federal election when it hadn’t. Collectors items.
December 4th, 2009 at 8:46 am Elbogrease(Quote)
I never sign up for anything. Sites like Punch have much more reader comment than National times or Crikey which require registration.
@ Roly I totally agree with you mate.