Comments on: Three ideas to make newspaper pay walls work

By: Richard Kendall

Richard Kendall — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:28:23 +0000

Rumblings everywhere about paywalls again. Almost seems like its inevitable?

But I still don’t see a straightforward way to make it work. If every publisher did it, then people would eventually pay up, but probably not enough, like so many of those previous attempts.

And there’ll always be the BBC with it’s impressive and technically free national/international coverage to scupper the nationals potential audience.

So many questions over cost, payment method, currency conversion. and what if it didn’t work… cue embarrassing turnaround and/or final nail

By: jhon

jhon — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:53:51 +0000

i like your ideas so i will make my own newspaper

By: Alaninantwerp

Alaninantwerp — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:52:02 +0000

I like the NewsPal idea. It could work — but only if media bosses around the world subscribe to the idea.

Meanwhile, dear old Rupert has lost the plot in thinking he can introduce pay-per-view for his stable of papers. The horse has bolted — and it’s too late to close the stable door.

Pay-per-view would work only if the standard of journalism was good enough to sustain it: shoddy journalism = loss of readers = loss of ad revenue.

The big question is: are publishers with ink in their veins innovative enough to meet the digital challenges now facing them?

By: Mary Jo

Mary Jo — Sat, 09 May 2009 07:15:35 +0000

Better include a currency converter as well. US & Canadian folks check out UK articles, and I assume other countries do as well.

By: Tim Sculthorpe

Tim Sculthorpe — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:44:41 +0000

Bolted, horse and closing the gate come to mind, unfortunately. I can’t any way people are going to start paying for content on the internet because it will always be free somewhere. If this had been in place a decade ago, maybe.

Keeping your celebrity columnists behind a pay wall is probably possible but it wouldn’t create enough revenue to make it worthwhile.

The BBC website is (probably) always going to be free before you go anywhere near the content in Google News and the blogs.

News websites have to find a way to make money but I can’t see charging for content is going to be it.