Here’s a nice piece from Scooping The News that outlines clearly why they think charging for online news content is a bit of a non-starter. It covers the main bases: The supply of web content is now vast Charging hasn’t worked for anyone else yet. Newspapers don’t have compelling enough content to compete There will […]
Even casual readers of Freelance Unbound will know I’m pretty sceptical that the news media will find it easy to make a go of charging for online access to plain old news. But, you know, I could be wrong. A case in point is the Boston Globe, which has announced it will definitely, absolutely, start doing […]
There’s a good piece on PaidContent.org about Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for News International’s web content. Part of this will be to charge for access to The Sun and the News of the World online. How will he manage to do this? “Just make our content better and differentiate it from other people. And I […]
Some more evidence that digital creation and distribution of content will keep transforming the media – Getty Images has bought iStockphoto for a reported $50 million. The web and digital technology have transformed the business of photography. But what at first made picture researchers’ lives easier has now made it much more difficult to make […]
Very interesting piece by Stan Schroeder on Mashable on the different implications of free online content. “Free” is not just about price – it’s also about simplicity and ease of use. Some content will be difficult to charge anything for. Unfortunately for journalists, it’s news. Forcing charges down people’s throats is a bad way to […]