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Sir John Bond: The man who paid £600 to edit his Wikipedia entry

March 10th, 2011

Oh my.

There’s a lot to be said about Sir David Tang’s ICorrect. Sky have given the background. It’s a new website which invites celebrities and other public figures to, the creator says, “correct permanently any lies, misinformation and misrepresentations that permeate in cyberspace”.

Users can sign up, bring attention to a mistake and then write their side of the story alongside it. This is important, they say, as “the likes of Wikipedia and Google searches consist entirely of hearsays”. Apparently, ICorrect lets users permanently “correct” these sites.

That’s an odd claim. It does nothing to change the websites in question, and it comes at an extortionate price: £600 a year, or £3,100 if you’re a company.

Amazingly, it seems to boast top names like Michael Caine, Naomi Campbell and Cherie Blair.

It’s probably the greatest get rich quick scheme I’ve ever come across – an inkling which was confirmed with this priceless correction from Sir John Bond, the chairman of communications giant Vodafone:

I wish to correct my entry in Wikipedia. I was born on 24 July 1941. I am not The Honourable. I joined The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation at the age of 19, not 21. I have not worked in the Middle East. I was posted to New York, not Buffalo. I spent one year in the USA as an English-Speaking Union scholarship student at Cate School, near Santa Barbara, California, not two years.

Incredible. £600 to correct a mistake on a freely-editable online encyclopedia. Hilariously, the Wikipedia entry is still wrong.

Tell you what, celebs, I’ll charge you £300 for five years to write your corrections to the international media in the comments of this post. Knock yourself out.

18 comments »

Posted in Comment, Multimedia, Newspapers, Social Networking, The Future, The Web

Five reasons why the Kindle is possibly my favourite device ever

January 31st, 2011

I was lucky, earlier this week, to finally get my hands on a lovely new iPhone 4. It is simply the most sophisticated gadget I’ve ever owned – not to mention the most expensive. But while I’m still in the giddy ‘new gadget’ love-in, it certainly won’t take my affections away from the best thing in my bag – the Amazon Kindle.

I bought the WiFi-only version just before Christmas. It was at the time of the massive ad campaign from Amazon – and I’d hazard a guess that there were more Kindle ads than Kindles in London at one point. It worked – curiosity of my fellow commuters meant a lot of “oh… is that a Kindle? How do you find it?” questions on my journeys around the capital. There are less now, I’m assuming that many who’d wondered about the Kindle had got one, or given one, as a holiday gift.

It’s certain that popularity is growing. Indeed, we’re hearing now that in the last three months of 2010, in the US, Amazon sold more e-books than actual paperbacks.

I guess we all have our reasons for liking the device. But here are mine. For the Kindlerati among us, please add your own…

1. It doesn’t do very much

I thought long and hard over whether to shell out the extra few quid and get the 3G version of the Kindle before deciding it wasn’t worth it. I don’t need the internet when I’m reading. If anything, it’s the internet that’s been stopping me reading all these years anyway – a constant distraction, flickery lights that take me away from good old-fashioned literature.

So when people say, “It’s not as good as the iPad, you can’t do much else with it”, I say, “GOOD! That’s the point!”.

Think of it this way: What’s the best book you’ve ever read? Remember how engrossed you were, as if the world could collapse around you and you still wouldn’t notice. Now – imagine missing out on that because you suddenly got distracted by playing a bit of Angry Birds.

Seems crazy to think – but while a device could do a million-and-one things at a time, that’s just a million reasons for you not to read. And for me, the Kindle was about reading. Nothing else.

Nobody has ever criticised a paperback’s inability to send a tweet. So why do people get hung up on a feature-lite device?

2. It’s allowed me to enjoy long-form writing again

Nobody reads anything online. We think we do, but really we read the first few bits of text, skim around, check out the hot pictures (if it’s the Daily Mail…) and move along to something else. That’s not reading.

I guess that theory means you’ve stopped reading this by now, but I’ll trudge on regardless. By using the brilliant Instapaper, I’m able to see something good, interesting and long-form and, rather than stop everything I’m doing right there, I can just click a bookmarklet and send it to my Kindle for reading later. Bliss.

I’m not the only one. LongReads.com is one of a few sites promoting the best long-form writing from around the web. I’m hooked.

3. Project Gutenburg

I can still hardly believes this exists. Project Gutenburg looks pretty naff (if I’m quite honest), but it’s a gateway to a library of some of humankind’s greatest achievements.

The site allows the free download of books in the public domain. Often, this means books which were written so long ago that their copyright has since expired. Selected personal highlights: The Time Machine, Sherlock Holmes and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Project Gutenberg is the perfect way to – if you’re like me – catch up on all those classics that you really should have read, but never got round to.

Worth pointing out too that Gutenberg books work on all e-readers, and come in a variety of languages. Tasty.

4. I don’t have to be its mother

I’ve had the Kindle for well over a month now, and I’ve charged it, er, twice. And that includes when I first opened it up.

Now bear in mind that in that time I’ve read five books, at least 50 articles and endured two 25-hour flights to and from Australia and you’ll start to have some idea of the juice this little thing can hold.

Being able to not think about gadgets is important for me. Sometimes, with my iPhone, I feel like I’m looking after a small child.

Where a mum would do the customary “do you need a wee wee before we go shopping?”, I constantly need to mentally ask my iPhone: “Are you going to need a little chargey-charge before I go out tonight?”

The Kindle… it just is, you know? It’s in my bag. And if I fancy reading, I can.

5. It doesn’t make me want to puke on the bus

Reading in a moving vehicle makes me want to die. Seriously. I lose all the colour in my face (which, as the Palest Person on Earth, is quite scary) and want to vom.

I’ve asked a few people over time and it turns out I’m not the only one. Now this isn’t a problem if you don’t get driven to lots of places – but for anyone who has experience the No. 25 bus from Tottenham Court Road to Stratford will know, it’s a long and bumpy ride.

Imagine how delighted I was, then, to discover that by bumping up the font size a little, I can eliminate the nausea which previous cursed my boring journeys.

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Posted in Books, Five Things, Multimedia, The Future, The Web

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Five reasons why Facebook Credits will save newspapers

December 6th, 2010

First things first, I hate seeing the phrase “can save newspapers” thrown around all over the shop whenever a new techy idea comes out.

But, chances are you’ve found this via Twitter and, if you’re anything like me, seeing someone claim they know what will save newspapers is enough to make you click just so you can tell me why I’m so very wrong. Go ahead.

This post is going to simply outline what I think is a massive development for the potential of selling content on the web.

For years, the industry in-joke has been this formula for online publishing success:

1. Publish content
2. Get traffic
3. ????
4. Profit!

Hopefully the following points can explain why I think the ‘????’ in that horrid equation is now obvious: Facebook Credits.

Before we begin, let me add that I’m not proposing all newspapers become Facebook apps instead of standalone sites. Rather, in a similar way to the ‘Like’ button that is appearing all over, it should be a system which is implemented neatly with the individual sites.

1. Social gaming is the new crossword puzzle – and it’s worth $6bn worldwide

Last year, report the NYTimes, the Daily Mail made £12 million through digital content revenues. Meanwhile, Zynga – the company responsible for Farmville – is set to net $500 million from sales of virtual goods.

Virtual goods are every business’ dream. Imagine being able to sell something that essentially doesn’t actually exist. Take roses, for example. Josh Halliday reports in the Guardian that Flirtomatic, a social network which is barely even heard of, sold more virtual roses last year than Interflora sold real ones.

Not only that, but it convinced 100,000 people to pay to ‘attend’ a virtual fireworks night.

But what does this have to do with newspapers? An awful lot.

Jim Tucker, a very good friend and former editor of a national newspaper in New Zealand, once told me about a cunning experiment he devised when he first took over as editor at a newspaper. He took his staff to the streets to find out why they buy the paper. If they said they loved the features, they could put more money into it. If it was more sport they craved, then at least now they’d know.

What did they find? Crossword lovers. Serious crossword lovers. You see, a lot of people who bought the newspaper didn’t give two hoots about the news but, once their beloved crossword was done, they’d give the rest of the paper a read. It was a model that suited everyone, even if it did shatter the egos of Jim and his staff.

Social gaming is the new crossword.

Am I telling everyone that newspapers need to start deploying farm-based games across their sites? No, don’t be silly. What I am saying is that people’s desire to have Facebook Credits in order to play online games is, for editors, a gift from the gods. Suddenly, we’ve got millions of people – young people, don’t forget – who have credits. Credits which they didn’t buy to read news but, now they’ve got them won’t give much thought to spending a couple on content.

The newspaper would, on current rates (dictated by Facebook), take 70% of each credit’s monetary value.

I believe, ladies and gents, that’s what we call a business model.

2. No self-assembly required: let Zuckerberg worry about it

A little while ago, I blogged this:

When you by The Times, do you have to go to a special newsagent which just sells that paper? Do you then have to cross the road to get the Telegraph? No.

My point then was that we need a central payment system which deals with every newspaper and content provider on earth. Problem is, who exactly would do it? If NewsCorp tried, there’s no way the other papers would collectively think “Oh, Rupert’s got a good idea…” and sign up.

But it needed to happen, and Facebook has got there first. This is good for newspapers. Think about The Times, and the money spent on the following:

  • Designing, developing and implementing the paywall software (and the new look site to put it all on)
  • Setting up the systems needed to securely and reliably handle the influx of sensitive data now coming their way
  • Establishing a new customer services team to handle queries (“It doesn’t work on my computer”,”I want my money back” and so on)

I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you use Facebook as your model you can just, erm, sign up. As Gordon Ramsey would probably say, “Payments: done.”

3. Wall? What wall? It may be paid-for, but it’s certainly not hidden

One of the criticisms levelled at The Times is that, due to the paywall, their content is hidden. You may be reading it, but you can’t share it with your friends or colleagues.

Potential customers can’t get to the opinion section of The Times’ site – so it would be a very trusting person indeed who’d take a risk on it, even if it is just a quid. No surprise, then, to see many of The Times’ opinion writers gleefully sharing their links on Twitter when the paywall momentarily stopped working.

With Facebook Credits, the potential to have the best of both worlds is a real possibility. Would “Dave Lee just bought Charlie Brooker’s latest column from the Guardian” look so out of place on your Facebook feed? The entry would have quick, enticing kicker which could potentially lure in a few extra punters.

If a friend of mine pops in to leave a comment – something along the lines of “I loved this, one of Charlie’s best!” – the power of social recommendation will then transform into profits.

Where with The Times you’re presented with a locked door, by using a payment system so tightly incorporated with the world’s dominant social network, you’re working behind a pay window, not a wall.

4. Your mum could do it

I’m not insulting your mum. But I do know she’s statistically unlikely to be able to get her head round something like a pay wall. Or rather, she’d be put off by the technical oddity of it all that she’d be reluctant to even try.

As a person who has their very own mother, I know that the less computer-literate out there want things to be as simple as possible.

Simplicity, in this case, means familiar. It means “set up by my son so I can use it from now on”.

Facebook Credits are going on sale in Tesco. Even if you’re not convinced in my argument so far, that move by the supermarket giant should at least tell you a little bit about why this is going to be massive. Get your head round that for a moment: Tesco expect people to physically go to a shop, buy an actual product (a voucher) and then take it home to buy something virtual.

If someone like my Mum, or my Dad, or even my newspaper loving Nan knows that she can get all the great stuff on her computer just by popping to the shops to get it, they will. Trust me, buying vouchers to use online from the local supermarket is much less hassle for some people than filling in an online form. To you and I it may seem absurd, but I’m right.

And that’s before you get into the promotional possibilities. Every time you spend £20 or more on petrol you get 100 clubcard points and… some Facebook Credits? Automatically deposited into your account?

The disconnection between all our content providers mean this couldn’t happen now. “Spend £10 on beans and get a free day’s trial on The Times’ new website” sounds dull and, ironically, as old media as getting a free CD-ROM on the front of a mag.

Facebook Credits being in Tesco offers the first real breakthrough in which the concept of online currency – something to buy quality goods with online – can hit the mainstream.

5. Selectivity breeds success – without subscription, you can concentrate on added-value

It could be argued that if the Guardian had a paywall, they wouldn’t have got the Wikileaks scoop. Its openness (and political stance, of course), spurs much of its success.

But with Facebook Credits, the Guardian could use these big, unique moments to earn money without killing their audience numbers.

Asking people to pay for hard news is a bad idea, and one that will fail. Information wants to be free, and it always will be. But while you wouldn’t ask someone to pay for this: WikiLeaks cables claim al-Jazeera changed coverage to suit Qatari foreign policy, would it be so unreasonable to ask for a few credits for added value like this: US embassy cables: browse the database? Or perhaps this: Julian Assange answers your questions?

It’s this judgement that makes the difference for me when it comes to successfully encouraging people to pay. Facebook Credits – by nature of being a one-off micropayment – would allow editors to establish which stories would be paid-for, and which ones wouldn’t.

It’s a freedom which would herald the birth of quality, multimedia journalism to our media industry. An in-depth investigation, for the first time in the history of online journalism, would become more profitable than SEO-friendly stories about celebrities. Who doesn’t like the sound of that?

28 comments »

Posted in Five Things, Multimedia, New Zealand, Newspapers, Social Networking, The Future, The Web

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Five things I’ve learnt about… pay walls

February 8th, 2010

Pay walls, micropayments, premium subscriptions… whatever you want to call them, they all have one thing in common: we have no clue what works. Yet.

But we all have our own opinions on what won’t work. The anti-paywall brigade – I’m in it, I think, perhaps, possibly, slightly – will say stacking up all your content behind a big barrier is no way to gain an audience.

And others will add that ‘news’ – whatever that is – can’t be sold. It’s just information. Technically, we’ve never sold news. We’ve sold a newspapers; printed, delivered and physical. But never the actual news itself.

As Jim Tucker once told me, it was a very disheartening experience indeed to learn that his readers – he used to be the editor of a national Sunday paper in New Zealand – got more angry about a crossword being moved than they did about anything else.

Maybe people haven’t ever wanted to buy news? Depressing.

But fear not. Read around a bit on pay walls and you discover some decent initiatives. Yet, to great frustration, we’re sometimes our own worst enemies. Here’s five things I’ve learnt about pay walls – for good or for bad.

(by gyn_ti46 on Flickr)

1. Newspapers are very, very selfish

A few days ago, the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent Afua Hirsch tweeted that Alan Rusbridger said (possibly paraphrased): “if New York Times goes behind a paywall, Guardian will be most widely read enl-lang newspaper in the world.”

Well congratulations. I don’t think anyone can match the Guardian online right now – it really is a brilliant website which manages to mix normal, hard news with niche industries. Perfect. But Mr Rusbridger is seriously mistaken if he thinks being the most widely read english language newspaper in the world will solve any of his problems.

If you can’t make 30 million visitors work, then I’d argue no amount will turn things round. If anything – it’ll get worse.

And I can’t help thinking it’s a rather selfish response from the Guardian. They’d be much wiser, surely, to just keep schtum and see if Murdoch’s plans work. If they do, it’ll be better for everyone – especially the Guardian who, with a successful pay wall, could really benefit from all those Media Guardian addicts among us.

But, alas, we’ve got to put up with pretty pathetic bitching between each side… which brings me onto my next point:

2. It’s about to get messy

Perhaps it already has. Bullshit, says Murdoch of Rusbridger’s notion that newspapers will “sleep walk into oblivion” if they adopt pay walls.

I’m no Murdoch fan – nothing personal, but his control on the world is scary, no? – but I’m starting to think we should give him a good chance with this. Maybe we’ll look back in ten years and say ‘hey… he really saved the industry’. It’s possible.

But before then it’ll be mud-slinging all round. I can almost sense the excited fingers of comment writers just itching to get stuck in News Corp when the first major pay walls go up. Presuming it’s The Times, what’s the betting that we’ll see a whole heap of bile about the quality of the ‘paid’ Times compared to the free Telegraph? Very likely.

But again, as in point two, we’d be far better off diverting our energy into working as a collective to embrace new ways of paying for news online – rather than picking into each other for some short term traffic gains.

Imagine that. “Our newspaper is out of business because we couldn’t adapt to a new business model. Damn. But hey, on the plus side, in the month we slagged off the other paper we got 800,000 extra uniques!”

Mugs!

3. BBC News Online doesn’t change anything

“Dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market makes it incredibly difficult for journalism to flourish on the internet. Yet it is essential for the future of independent journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it.”

The words of James Murdoch, son of Rupert, and chairman of News Corp.

It’s an interesting point, and at first glance it appears he may have a point. Right now, the BBC is probably the biggest news-gathering organisations in the world. To be a correspondent is to be at the top of your game. And the website with all this stuff? It’s free.

Obviously not 100% free – there’s a licence fee and all that. But in the minds of users, it feels like a free service. No barriers, no pay walls – you just log on.

So how can anyone compete?

Easily, I say. You see, BBC News Online is all about the here and now. What’s happening today. Yes – that’s the point of a newspaper too – but in a different way, I’d argue.

Newspapers can pile on the analysis. They can doggedly chase stories in a way that is different to the BBC.

Take the expenses scandal as a good example – would the BBC have been able to report that story the same way the Telegraph did? Of course not – it would fall down at the point of paying all that cash for the information.

So my view – a biased one, admittedly – is that if newspapers think the BBC News website completely kills of the level playing field they need to just be more imaginative.

4. It’s a brilliant thing for quality journalism

‘Tits for hits’ is a phrase we jokingly use in our office. It’s true – any story with a promise of some flesh is a surefire way to get hits.

It doesn’t bode well for the future of quality journalism, does it? If all we click on is boobs, then it would be easy for news editors to just save money and make all their stories about Angelina Jolie. Seems like the Daily Mail does that anyway – take a look at their right hand nav.

With pay walls that all changes. I wouldn’t pay to read about Jordan getting married (again), but I would pay for the brilliant One in 8 Million series from the New York Times. I’d pay an awful lot, actually.

This means that, for the first time in our industry’s history, what the journalists want will be in tune with what the bean counters want.

If good journalism sells – which it will – then we’ll be needed to do more of it. Happy days.

5. The makers of Press+ are going to be very, very rich

I prattled on a few months back about how micro-payments could work if there’s a single payment method for every newspaper/news site in the world.

A Paypal for papers, if you will.

I think this is the most crucial aspect of the whole pay wall debate. If there can be one central system that powers it all, for everyone, then we’ve got a system that will succeed.

Put it this way – when you by The Times, do you have to go to a special newsagent which just sells that paper? Do you then have to cross the road to get the Telegraph? No.

Well someone’s only gone and done it. Press+ is touting itself as an out-of-the-box solution for pay walls. From PaidContent:

“Any consumer with a Press+ account should only have to enter payment info once to use the account for any publisher taking part.”

Spot on. So let’s just get on with it, eh?

5 comments »

Posted in Five Things, Multimedia, Newspapers, The BBC, The Future, The Web

Why The Journalist needs Michael Cross as editor

October 13th, 2009

Why join the NUJ? That’s what I asked, months ago, in response to my alienation at the union which should have helped me in an hour of need.

The NUJ is stuffy, out-dated and, for journalists like me (i.e. non-print, non-ancient), largely irrelevant.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it. Many disagree – good – but many don’t. Problem is, while the disagreers are frowned upon as being poor team players, I doubt any of us don’t want the NUJ to be a roaring success.

A crucial part of resurrecting the NUJ lies with communication. On the social networks, they’re doing OK. Good not great. Every now and then they’ll pop up in my Facebook inbox and ask me to send a message of support, or to sign a petition and so on – the usual union-y type things.

But that’s where it ends. I don’t know how they got on (badly, usually, but the Union has to publicise this as well).

More importantly, I don’t feel, in any way, part of a community of journalists. Or at least, I didn’t when I was a member – I cancelled my subs when I left university.

That’s why the upcoming vote for the new editor of the NUJ’s magazine, ‘The Journalist’, is so very important. A good magazine can go a long way to solving all the problems I spoke of above. With a strong website, it’ll grab in people like me – the future of journalism and the NUJ – and re-ignite debate among the journo masses.

If you want this to happen, you should vote for Michael Cross.

I’ve known Michael for a few years now. I met him through the brilliant networking site Journobiz (a site which, incidentally, feels more like a union to me than the NUJ ever has). As a very successful freelance journalist, his advice has always been extremely valuable in steering me along the right path. Not to mention his encouragement which is always genuine and sincere.

But that’s not why you should vote for him. After all, he’s not going to spend his time giving everyone advice. But what he will do is put tons of creative energy into the Journalist, drawing on years of knowledge that has made him wise and experienced – but not old-fashioned or in denial about journalism’s future. He’s a man that loves the print press, but isn’t in love with it. He knows that good journalism is good journalism – and, above all else, he knows what makes journalists tick. He knows what we need to know. And he knows how to tell us.

If you’re a member of the NUJ, I urge you to vote for Michael Cross.

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Posted in General, The Future

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The passion press: a business model?

May 26th, 2009

I’ve been all about micropayments lately — but here’s another idea to chew over.

I’m going to call it the “got any spare change guv’nor?” approach. It works, consistently, for Wikipedia — but for how long we don’t know. (Side note: Is ‘Ars Technica’ actually pronounced, y’know, ‘arse’? Works for me.)

The other night I got an email from Simon Owens, a former newspaper hack and now social media-y kinda guy. He shared his post about ‘Paste’ magazine, an independent music magzine in the States:

“We needed some cash,” Purdy told me. “So we had always known that if we ever had to, we could go to our readers. A lot of them tell us — especially in the last few months, because they’re not dumb, they know what’s going on in the economy — they’ve written us and said, ‘hey, if things ever get rough on Paste, make sure you ask us for help,’ and so we took them seriously. We have a special relationship with out readers.

Woah — how many magazines could say that with a straight face?

But it got me thinking — is the passion press the ultimate business model? I donated money — a tiny amount, but an amount nonetheless — to Wikipedia when I was studying. Why? Because I couldn’t live without it. Are there magazines you couldn’t live without? Possibly not — but there’s probably a website out there that you love.

Personally, if they asked, I’d donate money to When Saturday Comes, the brilliant football magazine which, I’m delighted to say, I now write for. Before the days of WordPress.com, I’d have winged a few quid to WordPress if they’d really needed it. After all — I owe much of my career to this simple yet powerful software.

Twitter? Perhaps. Facebook, no, not now. There’s a point, I guess, when a site lifts itself away from the community and into the hands of corporations — and Facebook’s time has long gone.

But how’s that for a business model? Sites struggle on with advertising revenue — but if they need it, readers trump up and sort them out. Are there any magazines you’d donate money to in order to keep them alive?

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Posted in Comment, Social Networking, The Future, The Web

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20 practical and innovative ways to introduce micropayments for newspapers

May 15th, 2009

A couple of posts ago, while pondering micropayments, I wrote “If my time at the BBC has taught me anything, it’s that ideas are worthless — it’s working examples that really get you somewhere”. Since then, a friend emailed me, saying that she thinks the problem with micropayments is that people don’t know see how they fit in. They don’t see how people — the punters — will react to suddenly being told to pay for something that used to be free.

I believe it can be done.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

It’s not a case of just throwing up subscription walls, slapping readers in the face with a log-in screen that says “Join now and get 40% off at Debenhams”. We need to be inventive. Considering how creative journalism is, the lack of creative thinking with payments (and the web in general) is baffling. What are we afraid of? Innovation? Profit?

So I’d like to get the ball rolling. Here are 20 suggestions for adding micropayments to a newspaper website. The ideas cover promotion, implementation and, for want of a better phrase, damange limitation. I’m going to divide them up into categories depending on the ‘type’ of person.

Mr Jones the Newspaper Buyer, 53

1. Mr Jones appreciates online treats after buying his newspaper

Mr Jones goes out and buys The Times. He spends 90p. Mr Jones reads The Times on his way to work, and stuffs it in his bag when he’s done. At work, he checks the newspaper online; but hang on — he can’t access the articles. Under the new micropayment scheme he’s forced to pay again. Right? Wrong. In Mr Jones’ paper, he has a voucher. On that voucher is a unique code that can be used once — and only once — to access the day’s content online. He can do this for just 30p — that’s a third of the normal price. For £1.20, Mr Jones has got the print product and all the additional online extras too. Mr Jones is happy.

2. Mr Jones wants to subscribe (Thank you Mr Jones!)

Subscriptions are on the decline, yes, but there are still core subscription readers who will be around for some while yet. Mr Jones is one of them. If he wanted to subscribe to The Times he would have to pay £5.50 per week. Mr Jones should be offered the newspaper plus all the brilliant web content for £6.50 a week. Five days of web goodness for just £1. “That’s lovely,” says Mr Jones.

3. If there’s one thing Mr Jones enjoys more than cricket, it’s reading about cricket

It’s test match season — and if there’s one thing Mr Jones loves, it’s settling down to watch the days play at Lords. In a perfect world, he’d be able to spend his days watching the willow. But sadly he has to resort to following the action online. No problem, though, because for £1, Mr Jones gets full coverage from the test: A column from Michael Atherton, a podcast with Geoffrey Boycott, an interactive scoreboard. Typical things like match reports and liveblogs will still be free — the casual cricket fan won’t pay. But for people like Mr Jones, all this great coverage is really enjoyable.

4. Mr Jones is interested in politics

Between work, cricket and spending time with his lovely wife, Mr Jones doesn’t have much time for anything else. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to know what’s going on in the world of politics. For 50p a week, The Times will send him a politics digest t0 his inbox once a day from their team at Westminster. If he likes it, he can subscribe for £1.50 a month — saving 50p as he goes.

5. Mr Jones is delighted with his theatre vouchers, and he knows which show to see

So many shows, so little time. Or maybe, so little money. The good news for Mr Jones is that to go alongside the micropayment relaunch, The Times has also launched its special interactive theatre guide. Mr Jones knows what’s on, at what time, and how good it is. The guide costs 50p per week — but at the end of each month he’ll get some vouchers to print off and enjoy. Money well spent Mr Jones!

Pete the student, 20

6. Pete gets £5 of free credit every month

Pete may be eating moudly bread and sleeping in grubby sheets, but he still likes to keep up to date. Handy, then, that he gets £5 free credit to spend on newspapers online each month. He can spend it as he chooses. On any newspaper. Just one of the perks of being a National Union of Students member.

7. Pete thinks Flight of the Conchords are awesome

Which means he is pleased to discover the feature about the new series on the website. He reads it. It’s free. But for an exclusive audio clip of Bret and Jemaine talking about the show, he can pay 20p. If Bret and Jemaine are feeling exceedingly generous, their live track will cost Pete 50p — but he can download it to keep.

8. Pete really loves music

Pete is getting fed up of having to buy clips from his favourite bands individually each time. Those 50p installments soon add up for him. For £5 a month, Pete can download clips, listen to podcasts, see exclusive video interviews on all all online newspaper sites. Not just one. The income is distributed to newspapers depending on which content he chooses.

9. Pete supports Chelsea

Don’t blame Pete, it’s not his fault. But we shouldn’t begrudge him the enjoyment of knowing about his club. Mr Jones subscribed to the test match, but Pete just wants to know about Chelsea. That’ll cost him 80p a week. For that money he’ll get daily news digests, exclusive interviews, features, fan community involvement: all sorts.

Now while Pete is a bit of a grubby glory hunter, he still follows his local team: Shrewsbury Town. He can follow them as well and, because he already subscribes to Chelsea, the second team only costs him 20p per week.

10. Pete wants to share his favourite articles with his friends

Chelsea thump Aston Villa 4-0? Well we have some celebrating to do! Pete can send the interview with 4 goal hero Didier Drogba to his Chelsea-supporting pal Dean. Dean, subsequently, signs up to the newspaper service. “How does this work then?” he asks.

11. It’s dissertation time — get the archive out!

If Pete’s lucky, his university will give him access to Lexis Nexis, a brilliant archive of newspaper articles. Problem is, not all newspapers are included. Searching is tricky, and it can be quite buggy. For £5 — a one off, he won’t use it again — he has full access to the online and offline archives for all UK newspapers (or, indeed, the world’s newspapers!). If he’s struggling, all consecutive weeks of archive use will just cost him an extra quid. Pete is thankful — his dissertation is bloody brilliant.

Karen the stay-at-home mum, 35

12. Karen cares about her childrens’ education…

Karen wants to know everything there is to know about schooling and education. She wants league tables, inspection reports and real-life case studies. Does she have time to sift through the paper every day? No way! For £1 a week, Karen recieves a weekly digest of the important stories of the week in education. If she buys a newspaper on Sunday, she can use a voucher to get this digest for 50p. Again, if she subscribes for a week, she gets a discount.

13. …But that’s not all she’s in to

Education is important, yes, but Karen would get bored (and probably quite depressed). So as part of a bundle offer (think Sky subscription packages) Karen can choose two other sectors to get digests for — for just £1.50 per week. That’s less than half price!

14. Loose Women — let’s go online

(for my non-UK readers, Loose Women is a daytime chat show with a panel of four or so middle-aged women.)

Karen likes to get right stuck in with Loose Women when it’s on. Sure, they’re whiny, and she can’t stand one of them, but she likes the relevance and indeed the fun the show brings. For 20p, Karen can join in with the online webchat each day. She chats about the issues covered in the show and has fun with other likeminded people, all from the comfort of her home.

15. Karen is an avid reader, but hasn’t got time for a book club

Before they moved onto that strange digital channel, Karen really loved the Richard and Judy book club. It made the tricky task of picking the wheat from the chaff much easier. For £1 a week, Karen can subscribe to the newspaper book club. The literary editor will preside over the suggestions, and subscribers will get money off the featured titles. Every week, a distinguished author will be on hand with interviews, podcasts or webchats.

Phil the news junkie, 26

16. Phil wants to be up-to-date, all the time

Phil can’t get enough news. He always likes to be the first to know. He follows all the social media services, but what he’d really appreciate is a human filter. For £1 a week, Phil gets access to the human-powered breaking news wire. The wire editor’s job is to filter meaningful tweets, images, links and news snippets and bring them to Phil. The editor is doing the leg work so Phil doesn’t have to.

17. Phil knows he is likely to spend a lot online, so he deserves bulk discounts

Each month, Phil is spending around £20 on micropayments. That sure is a lot! His loyalty should be rewarded. If he adds his newspaper credit in chunks of £20, he gets £5, absolutely free.

18. Phil treats his newspaper credits like an Oyster Card

(For non-UK readers, an ‘Oyster Card’ is a pre-pay card for London transport)

If you spend more than a certain amount on an Oyster Card in one single day, any trips for the rest of that day are included in that price. Nifty. Likewise, when Phil spends a lot of time reading one particular newspaper, he could end up spending the same amount as the cover price. If this is to happen, Phil automatically unlocks the rest of the ‘paid’ content for that day. Lucky Phil!

19. Phil spends SO much, he’s now a priority member

Phil is really valued by newspapers. He spends a lot. So, whenever newspapers are promoting a special event, or book, or film… Phil is the first to know. And Phil gets first refusal.

20. Phil knows a big story when he sees one

Phil is shocked at the recent revelations revealed by the Daily Telegraph about MPs expenses. He wants to know everything about it. Fortunately, for £1.50, Phil has access to all articles relating to the expenses issue. All analysis, commentary and opinion is free for him to enjoy and digest.

–

Additional notes

Are these ideas the finished product? No, clearly not. But from what I can find its a pretty extensive bunch of thoughts – and I’d love to see what others can come up with too.

The important bit: What we DON’T charge for

I’m going to try and nip one of the inevitable criticisms of these ideas in the bud straight away. “Why would you pay if you can get the news somewhere else?” Simple: Because what we’re charging for will be unique. You don’t charge for the story — you charge for its valuable extras. You don’t charge for the written interview, you charge for the associated audio clip. In other words, if you site is the only place you can get this information, then that’s when you can charge.

Easy-to-remember rule: If it would go on the Google News frontpage, it should be free.

We also need to know how sites adopting micropayments would fit into the link economy. In particular, what do we do with blogs? Simple: we leave them as they are. Blogs can act as traffic vacuums. By linking here and there, appearing on feeds, getting involved, blogs can keep newspapers involved socially, while at the same time drawing new readers to the paid-for content.

Outdated ideas we need to dismiss

The notion of ‘all or nothing’ subscription walls is outdated and, quite frankly, ridiculous. When someone clicks on an article and is greeted with a message saying they must take out a monthly subscription, their mental response is “But I only wanted to read that one article!”. Just like small top-ups brought mobile to the masses, micropayments can bring paid online content to the masses too.

Loyalty in news no longer exists. If you think there is anyone out there who goes online, reads one source and one source only then you are deluded. Move on.

Crucial factors that must be in place

Do you go to a seperate newsagents each time you want to buy a different newspaper? Didn’t think so. They’re all in the same place, and all bought using the same currency. Let’s bring this way of thinking online. There must be one, and only one, system for paying for newspaper content online. You need to be able to sign in, and be signed in to every newspaper in the world. Only then can we succeed in monetizing the web.

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Why micropayments won’t corrupt journalism

May 13th, 2009
Small change guvnor?

Small change guv'nor?

I’m quite bemused at the reaction to the micropayments idea from many big names.

Clay Shirky says:

The threat from micropayments isn’t that they will come to pass. The threat is that talking about them will waste our time, and now is not the time to be wasting time. The internet really is a revolution for the media ecology, and the changes it is forcing on existing models are large. What matters at newspapers and magazines isn’t publishing, it’s reporting. We should be talking about new models for employing reporters rather than resuscitating old models for employing publishers; the more time we waste fantasizing about magic solutions for the latter problem, the less time we have to figure out real solutions to the former one.

He doesn’t mince his words there. What I find infuriating about Shirky is the constant assertion is that information should be free simply because it’s part of a conversation. Well here’s a game: try going into your local WHSmiths and demanding a free copy of Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody. Good luck.

Jeff Jarvis hops in:

Greg Horowitz raises an issue with micropayments that I haven’t seen discussed, one I’d think the heavy-duty journalists would be fretting about: If readers can buy individual articles, then won’t their writers be judged on the revenue they bring in and won’t their editors be motivated to assign more of what sells. Now I believe journalism needs market pressures to be responsive to its market. But every time anyone talks about giving the public what they want, some purist will respond worrying about the corruption of that: the Paris Hilton factor.

The Paris Hilton effect, hmm? I see his point. What I have noticed, though, is that Jarvis seems to have pulled his head out of his free-for-everyone backside and started to acknowledge that some form of payment has to be forthcoming. This is only a good thing — people listen to Jarvis.

Shirky, on the other hand, spends all his time telling us how things won’t work. We need a new model for hiring reporters, he’ll insist, but it’ not micropayments, or subscription. What model is it, Clay? Is it the model of writing a book and then touring the conference circuit like some sort of pastor? I sure hope not — that would be stupid.

Now, back to the topic. The issue Jarvis refers to in the quote above is a valid one. Would micropayments hasten the demise of ’serious’ journalism? Would editors shy from less sexy stories in favour of quick bucks?

There’s no denying it’s something we need to look at. From Greg Horowitz:

What exactly do these people think that newspaper execs will do with data showing exactly how profitable every single article is? Just sit on that information? Or will they use it to make business decisions about which departments, types of articles and individual journalists are delivering the most ROI? “Sorry, Woodward, we know you won the Pulitzer last year, but your articles only generated $97.85 in revenue, so we’re going to have to let you go.” Of course, it wouldn’t just influence the executives. Journalists themselves would start shading their stories to what sells, and the most successful would be the ones who were the best salespeople (or who knew the most tricks). Get ready for a lot less zoning-board recaps and a lot more “Top 10 Sexual Positions.”

But what I say to Greg Horowitz is that when he goes out to buy a newspaper, the front pages he’ll see already display the sort of corruption he worries about. In the UK, any front cover with Princess Diana is proof Horowitz’s fears are real — and there’s nothing we can do about it.

But here’s the crucial thing: There’ll always be Top 10 Sexual Positions articles. I love reading them — it’s fun. But pay for them? Nah. No way. Pay for expert analysis on MPs expenses, however, and I’ll get my wallet out.

Now you could believe that there is a worrying amount of people who are content to just read about trashy celebs. I read about trashy celebs daily — you can’t avoid it if you work in London. The Lite and thelondonpaper are thrust into your hands. It’s full of the stuff.

But online it’s different. More people choose to read ’serious’ newspapers online. The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph all fair better online than their tabloid cousins (with the exception, very recently, of The Sun). What this tells us is that when given a choice, people will look to the intellectual, the important, the interesting. Micropayments won’t dissuade that.

In my last post I looked at the concept of ‘valuable extras’. These can apply in celebrity stories too — you just have to be clever about it. If we take the news of Peter Andre and Katie Price’s split, a micropayment-savvy web editor wouldn’t have placed the story behind a micropayment wall. Instead, he’d make it freely available, gathering all the Google/Twitter/Digg hits imaginable, while instructing his journalists to put together his valuable extras: An interactive timeline with famous clips of their relationship. Audio with family and friends. Reaction from celeb friends. All valuable, unique additions that people — originally drawn to the page by traditional Google juice — can then splash a few pennies and enjoy.

It’s too simple not to work.

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Let’s make love, not walls

May 13th, 2009

The ugliest phrase in journalism at the moment is ‘pay wall’. Isn’t it just the worst possible way of describing what we want to achieve? Wall says restricted. Wall says “this isn’t for you”.

And wall sums up an entire attitude too. An attitude that we desperately need to shake off. An attitude that says the choice we have is either a) a free online newspaper or b) a paid for subscription for an online newspaper.

I say bring this to the table: c) A newspaper with added valuable extras which cost the reader.

What are valuable extras? Your star columnists. Your war correspondents. Your exciting multimedia. They can — and should — be behind the pay lid

What aren’t valuable extras? Hard news, breaking stories. In other words, the stories that every news website in the world can — and will — publish.

In today’s Evening Standard, Emma Duncan says the pay wall will never work because of one crucial enemy: the BBC. There’s no escaping it — the BBC’s resources, know-how and power could never be rivalled by any newspaper. That’s been the case for years. But she’s missing the point.

Later on in the same paper, their new sex columnist, Nirpal Dhaliwal suggests lovers should “Get yourself on to the roof of any major skyscraper for a similar adventure — Bush House for instance.” What better place to embrace your lust than on the top of the BBC World Service’s headquarters?

So taking Nirpal’s lead, I say let’s make love, not walls.

Newspapers may not be able to compete with the BBC. But on the same token, can the BBC ever compete with newspapers? A new colleague of mine at the World Service argued that newspaper journalism is REAL journalism. It’s the digging in. BBC News crews are so wrapped up in covering every major story of the day that they have literally no time to think about what it all means.

Take the recent Daily Telegraph scoop. Could the BBC have followed that one to its dramatic climax? No way. Couldn’t happen. But the Telegraph could. And boy, it did.

So far from looking at the BBC as an immovable object, I say the BBC is allowing newspapers to get on with it. The BBC News website is the Mr Muscle of online publishing. It really does love the jobs you hate.

Now if my time at the BBC has taught me anything, it’s that ideas are worthless — it’s working examples that really get you somewhere. So, taking the Telegraph scoop into consideration, here’s how you could handle the story online while making back some of the reported £150,000 you spent finding it all out:

mps-expenses-telegraph_1242171378405Here’s the homepage for the expenses story (enlarge by clicking). What are your valuables here? The great scoop about Lib Dems? Strangely not. This is the story that will — and indeed, already is — be thrust around news sources in seconds. In fact, I’d argue that none of the stories in the main area are valuable extras at all. In old money, they would have been — they would have been the money-grabbing front page. But not today. Big stories are shared stories — the important bit is using the kudos to your advantage.

The valuables, then, lie elsewhere. Look at the sidebar, what do you see? Comment. Simon Heffer on the spirit of Cromwell. Denis MacShane on how the BNP shouldn’t be allowed to capitalise on the scandal. These are your valuable extras. Knowing that it was the Telegraph that did the digging — isn’t its own analysis considered to be the golden nugget of its output?

And there’s more. You could charge for things like this. People appreciate the effort. Indeed, I didn’t buy the Telegraph this week, but had I have done I would have immediately looked up my local MP. This article appeals to me, and a micropayment arrangement would have worked.

And to top it off, the Telegraph could hurl in income by saying offering a one-time payment (two quid?) which gives you access rights to all expenses-related material on the site.

It’s all actually rather easy.

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Three ideas to make newspaper pay walls work

May 8th, 2009

When Murdoch says it’s happening — it’s happening. No two ways about it.

So when he says paid-for online news content is coming, then I think that means we need to sit up, take notice, and plan for the future.

And — on the face of it — this isn’t a bad future. If this takes off — and if anyone will do it, Rupert will — then it should save the industry as we know it.

So how will paid-for online newspapers work? Here’s three ideas I think need to be in place if it’s to be a success.

A quid for Janet Street-Porter? Behave.

A quid for Janet Street-Porter? Behave.

1. It has to be cheap.

The Independent (that newspaper we love with the website we hate), tried charging for online content a short while ago. Believe it or not, you once had to pay an entire pound to read Janet Street-Porter’s column. Now, thoughts on Janet aside (personally I’d rather dunk my face into a barrel of sick before reading her words), the concept of paying an entire quid on one single article was just insane. The newspaper, at that time, was 80p. The Sunday edition (where Janet’s column appeared) was about £1.50. So how, on balance, does that add up? Any customer that comes along knows that it doesn’t represent value for money. Not even close.

It should be 20p. Or even 10p. Crucially, if you spend enough 10p’s to make up the cost of the paper, all of your day’s reading, from there on in, should be free. Why should it be any other way? You’ve paid for the paper, you should be allowed to read it. Under the Indy’s old model, it would’ve cost you about £10 to read the opinion pieces from ONE EDITION of the newspaper. And we’re wondering why it didn’t work?

2. It should use aggressive marketing techniques.

Hey hey! It’s Free Column Friday! Or something. Let’s not just lie-down and say “right then, everything is 2op, off you go”. Let’s be inventive. Let’s have Alan Rusbridger’s five picks of the day for 50p. Let’s have five Jeremy Clarkson columns for the price of four. Let’s have a loyalty bonus: You’ve read Charlie Brooker for the past 5 weeks? Hey, guess what, Charlie loves you — here’s a sixth article for free. Hell, here’s an EXCLUSIVE article for free. Why not?

Put your online price right up there with your offline price. Advertise content with the online price tag attached. Make it seem like a bargain. Make the reader think “Hey, you know what, 20p isn’t bad. I put 20p in a charity box the other day, and thought nothing of it”.

3. It must be 1-system-fits-all.

PayPal - the model for buying online

PayPal - the model for buying online

This is by far the most important thing. Right now, it seems inevitable that Murdoch will introduce a pay-wall for The Times. Maybe the News of the World too, but that seems a bit far fetched considering the audience. So let’s assume The Times is getting the paid treatment first.

You’ll have to sign up, enter your details, key in your credit card info and activate your account. When you come to pay, you need to be signed in and wait for it to process.

That doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Well, no, but imagine doing that process for the Guardian, the Indy, the Mail, the Telegraph… you’d soon get fed up. You’d soon forget. I never comment on Guardian articles while I’m at work. Why? Is it because I’m too busy? No, of course not. It’s because I’ve forgotten my bloody password. At home it is saved, so I’m in automatically, but I can’t be bothered at work — I’d need to have an email reminder and all that rubbish.

A pay-wall would have the same effect, and then some.

Newspaper publishers need to get round the table and launch their own PayPal. It’s the only way it can work. I should be able to use the same account for every single newspaper on the planet. Or, at the very least, in the UK. But really, the planet. A PayPal for newspapers would be a revolution. It means I can keep track of what I’m reading, and spending, and not have to worry about signing in to 30 different sites.

The ease of use of the system will encourage more and more users. The fact you could read any newspaper with it would mean ‘credit’ could even become a gift: “Buy this bottle of Evian, and get 5 free articles on NewsPal!”

I think it works.

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