20 practical and innovative ways to introduce micropayments for newspapers
May 15th, 2009 by Dave 10 comments »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?
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.
Why micropayments won’t corrupt journalism
May 13th, 2009 by Dave 4 comments »
Small change guv'nor?
I’m quite bemused at the reaction to the micropayments idea from many big names.
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.
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.
Let’s make love, not walls
May 13th, 2009 by Dave 1 comment »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:
Here’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.
Nothing like a bit of passion
May 12th, 2009 by Dave 4 comments »I love this. Who wins? I’m not sure.
1-0 to the Evening Standard
May 11th, 2009 by Dave 1 comment »
Once or twice during the typical football season, Cambridge United hold special discount days. Normally this will be something like all under-16s getting in for a quid, or kids getting in free if they come with their old pops.
The club hopes that by igniting a bit of Saturday afternoon fun, the children will be pestering Dad next week. “Can we go to the football Dad? Can we can we?”
What you wouldn’t want, as a football club or fan, is these occasions to be a bore draw. Or a complete thumping at the hands of some other non-league minionish squad. Nobody likes being shown up by off-duty postmen.
Today was the Standard’s discount day. Chucking away their paper for free, it was actually an enticing offer. When given the option of Londonpaper or Lite versus the quality of the Standard, I almost felt sorry for the regular freebies. They just didn’t come close.
And, after a shaky start, I’m pretty pleased to say the Standard came home today with a steady 1-0 win.
I love a good redesign. I went out to grab a free copy on my lunch break just to take a look. Roy Greenslade was right — the masthead has looks only a mother would love — and it’s far too big. Interestingly enough, its colour changed between editions — the later version was much more pleasing to the eye. But still — far too big.
One other bugbear for me has to be the fonts. In the masthead, we’ve lost the all important gravitas that the old mast used to have. Gone is Eros. Instead, we’ve got a flimsy stack of text which seems imbalanced and clumsy. Around it, we have a contemporary font, or at least we would have done had it been 1998. Annoyingly, if you were to chop the mast off, the rest of the front page looks distinctly like the old newspaper. I say if you’re going modern, then do it properly. While I believe that journalism in Britain is better, we’re still light-years behind the US and even the rest of Europe when it comes to innovative design.
But that’s all an aside. Like watching Cambridge, you can’t let the naff and dated surroundings put you off — it’s what happens on the pitch that matters.
It didn’t look good at first. I don’t know about you, but Tom Wolfe doesn’t exactly scream excitement to me. And I’ve seen plenty of features about, and even written by, him. So considering this was a big launch it was a very soft lead feature, even more so when the cringeworthily weak ‘end of excess’ hook was in place. Dull.
At lunchtime, the frontpage lead was about a City tycoon’s double life. It was literally a double life. As they’d say in New Zealand, it’s a good yarn. You should read it. I’ve quoted Terry Tibbs on this blog before, but I must do it again. “Come on, you need to sell me. Seduce me. You don’t just jump into bed with Terry Tibbs.”
And that’s the problem. I didn’t know how good a story it was. The subs did a horrible job of making it seem interesting. I only ended up reading it when my battery ran out on the way home. My commute is much longer than the average Londoner, so I’d worry everyone missed it. Shame really.
But what did triumph on the feature front was the piece about the Power of 10. It made me think a lot. Sadly, it’s a typical PR-driven puff piece, but then I guess people often write good books. Who am I to deprive myself of knowing about them?
Sport was nothing special. Chelsea won. I knew that yesterday. I’m yet to see any of the London papers get to the nitty-gritty of their teams. Maybe the plethora of top flight competitors is a poisoned chalice. If there was only one massive team in London it would be a lot easier to get behind them. As it stands, they’ll forever be entangled around the politics of keeping Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs fans equally happy. No mean feat — we know Spurs fans are all miserable bastards.
On a more positive note, the Standard’s sports journalists have always been very keen to pick out comments from various web forums. The cynic would argue that this was just a means of getting easy, free copy. The cynic would also argue that the ramblings of a football fan on a forum are no substitute for good original journalism — but it’s a nice, fun diversion.
As much as I enjoyed the paper, I couldn’t help feel a little lonely. I’m used to picking up the Lite and heading straight to the text column. Or thelondonpaper and checking to see if some foxy admirer felt compelled to text in a compliment to ‘Love struck’. Soppy nothings they may be, but at least it makes me feel like I’m part of a community. One that, if I felt like it, I could interact with. The Lite’s column is especially good. I’d regard it as the best bit of a paper. And so would many other people, for that matter. I know the man opposite me at work loves it, and he’s a good 20-or-so years my senior. But, equally, the Dizzee Rascal-lookalike literally falling over with laughter on the tube yesterday seemed to be enjoying it too. If there’s one way to appeal to your readers, it’s to invite them in. Take note Standard.
So yes, all-in-all, it’s a one-nil win for the Standard. They didn’t wow the crowds, but they left me feeling like they were a team on the up. This could be their year. An old colleague said to me that “considering the Standard has the best beat in the world, it ain’t half rubbish”. He was right. And, uneasy as any Russian takeover may feel, if Alexander Lebedev wants to try and reflect a great city with a great newspaper — I say let him.
For the time being at least, they’ve gained another reader.
**
Other related reading:
Press Gazette – 650,000 giveaway for Evening Standard relaunch today. Dominic Ponsford’s thoughts (in the comments — I like this) are particularly astute: “[I]t still leaves me with the impression of being a paper that is elitist and aimed very much at an in-crowd of high-consuming, theatre-going, new fashion-wearing Londoners.” Very true. The lead comment piece today? This pile of bore. Sigh.
Media Guardian – Ex-Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley’s verdict on paper’s new regime
“Saying ‘Sorry’ for the past smacks of a Soviet courtroom ‘confession’. ‘Sorry’ has all the hallmarks of a KGB-style smear campaign.” — Wadley subtly hints at a dislike for the new Russian owners.
Three ideas to make newspaper pay walls work
May 8th, 2009 by Dave 5 comments »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.
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
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.
J-students must stick around and clear up the mess
May 6th, 2009 by Dave 5 comments »It’s May. And, tough as the journalism market is right now, it’s about to get tougher. Journalism schools around the UK are about to spit out their latest crop of hopefuls.
Last year, I was among them. This year, with an added year of experience and cynicism, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. And, no doubt, there will be many worried students out there, wondering if their three years (or more) of study were worth it.
Here’s my advice: stick around and clear up the mess.
In an interview for Journalism.co.uk recently, I described how the job market has changed in the past year. In 2008, we were well aware that competition was tough. Reporters jobs were extremely thin on the ground. One position I applied for — on a smallish London newspaper — had, the editor told me, nearly 1000 applicants.
But now there isn’t any competition. There isn’t anything to compete over. Newspapers are getting rid, chopping down and slicing up. The reporter that left last week isn’t being replaced.
So what do journalism students do? Give up? Get a job in PR? Get a job in Sainsbury’s?
Maybe — if that’s what it takes. But here’s the crucial tip: whatever you do, stay close to journalism.
So what if there aren’t any full-time reporting roles on newspapers. Are the pages empty? No! They’re still full of words, pictures, stories. All of which are — until Murdoch invents some sort of Churnobot — written by humans. You’ll struggle with local newspapers, they don’t have much of a budget, but you could have better luck elsewhere. On the web, in the nationals — they all need writers.
So if you need to work at Sainsbury’s — do it. Work lates. Get a job in a pub.
Just spend your day being a journalist. Get shifts, even if it’s one day a week. Apply for anything that’s remotely near to a newsroom. Work on the reception if you have to.
You need to make sure you’re in the industry when it’s back on the way up.
Gollllllllllaccio! The greatest paper review is back — on the Guardian
April 9th, 2009 by Dave 4 comments »An odd thing happened when I was a wee lad: For a distinct period of time — about two years, there or thereabouts — I knew a helluva lot more about Italian football than I did English.
How on earth could such a thing happen? Very easily: Sky had all the live football, Match of the Day was on too late, and I was too young to muscle my way into the crowds at my first and only footballing love, Cambridge United.
So that left just two sports programmes to be regularly digested each weekend. Trans World Sport — a bizarre collection of sports like World Rally and Skiing that woke me up at the weekends (and had a very intense opening sequence).
And then the brilliant Football Italia.
On Saturday, the magazine show. On Sunday, the live game. Since maturing I’ve come to realise that Italian football is complete and utter toss, but at that time in my life, it was the only way I’d see live games. And so, as a result, I ended up taking a fondness to Parma. A great team, at the time, that have now turned a bit rubbish.
Gazzetta Football Italia — the Saturday show — had the usual blend of goals and interviews. And as kids we all gained much pleasure from shouting the trademark ‘Golllllllllllllllllllaccio!’ at the start of the show. A cry that you’d hear being screamed across the playground up and down the country. No idea what I’m on about? Watch this clip, and wait for the memories to flood back:
Beautiful.
The second best thing about the show (yes, the ‘Golaccio’ was the best thing — it was that good), had to be James Richardson’s newspaper review. Sat outside the trendiest cafés in all of Italy, James would pick through the sporting press, effortlessly translating headlines. I’ve never in my life picked up a copy of La Gazzetta Dello Sport — but I somehow felt like I read it every weekend for two years.
Enough of the nostalgia. Here’s what I spotted today:
Woohoo! There he is… swanky café; La Gazzetta Dello Sport; strange looking cake!
This seems to be a bit sporadic by the Guardian — the last clip I can find is from Euro 2008 — but I hope they keep this up. I miss James. My footballing week is enhanced greatly with comments like “Bayern aren’t new to going down easily, they are after all managed by Jurgen Klinsmann” and “[a Bild reporter] buried a sausage under a corner flag at the Nou Camp. A sort of game of ‘hide the sausage’, if you will. Instead, rather appropriately, Bayern came up with their wurst performance since 1974″
How James has never crow-barred his way into BBC or ITV I’ll never quite understand. But, for the time being at least, the legendary paper review is back — and it’s as good as ever. And, if you want more Richardson goodness, you can subscribe to the equally good (if a little more demanding of your time) Football Weekly podcast.
Gollllllllllllacccio!!!!
The passion press: a business model?
May 26th, 2009 by Dave 4 comments »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:
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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Tags: donations magazines simon owens wikipedia