This morning’s Media Guardian was a belter. It really was. Loads of great comment, useful insight and candid opinions.
It is of course the month of predictions. What’s the next big thing? Obesity, if last year is anything to go by. Heh.
But seriously, it’s one thing having willy-nilly comments featuring slightly educated guesses, and another thing all together to bring together some very progressive minds.
Step forward, Clay Shirky. His predictions are hardly groundbreaking, but he puts them in terms that doesn’t belittle anyone. Often, pro-print people dismiss online too aggressively. Likewise, pro-onliners lay into print folk as if they were mentally backwards for not wanting to blog their balls off. What Shirky manages is to hit a very logical middle ground. All parties should be reading this and thinking: “Yeah… that makes a lot of sense.”
Example:
The great misfortune of newspapers in this era is that they were such a good idea for such a long time that people felt the newspaper business model was part of a deep truth about the world, rather than just the way things happened to be. It’s like the fall of communism, where a lot of the eastern European satellite states had an easier time because there were still people alive who remembered life before the Soviet Union – nobody in Russia remembered it. Newspaper people are like Russians, in a way.
Perfect point.
An hour or so ago, Martin Stabe tweeted an age old newspaper problem:
Spent cramped flight wrestling with FT, WSJ, IHT and Die Welt. Broadsheet print is a rubbish format. about 1 hour ago from txt
Somehow in the midst of tradition, we’ve forgotten that the reason for broadsheets being broadsheet was simply that it was easier — when printing presses had to be painstakingly put together with big old plates — to print a few massive pages, rather than a lot of smaller pages.
I’d assume the broadsheet size was deemed as big as it could possibly go before it became unreadable.
And yet, papers like the Telegraph still insist on broadsheet in the name of tradition and, unbelievably, journalistic value.
What Shirky is saying, is that newspapers are important to the democratic world (and even the un-democratic world, I guess) because of the journalism that’s in them. The fact it’s on paper means nothing at all.
In the same way that Town Criers became obsolete when printing came along, newspapers are now obsolete because the internet has come along. What exactly are newspaper publishers fighting? Give up already. Become web publishers — and then work on producing quality journalism once again.
Sooner or later there’ll be an invention that will bring print-style journalism back to our hands. Foldable LCD screens, whatever. But until then, the web is where we all are — so publishers must put every resource they have into making their site absolutely bloody brilliant. Because if they don’t, they won’t survive when the print/LCD resurgence happens.
So. Don’t be proud of your newspaper. Be proud of your journalism. If you don’t acknowledge that clear fact then there is no future for your print edition — then there’ll be nowhere to put your journalism anymore.
Ask yourself, which is the greater tradition to protect: newspapers… or democracy?
They say hindsight is a glorious thing. When looking back, everyone can be an expert. Should have done this, shouldn’t have done that.
Three ideas to make newspaper pay walls work
May 8th, 2009When 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.
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Posted in Comment, Newspapers, The Future, The Web
Tags: indepdent janet street-porter Newspapers pay wall paypal rupert murdoch