Do we agree in online paywalls?
A quick query really, how do you feel about online pay-walls? That is, the restriction of content that the ‘free’ world has commonly grown used to, becoming restricted access that you have to pay for. We have found ourselves in a world where online = free and we as users typically do not wish to be out of pocket for our online addictions. The problem with that is the business’ that provide this content now can’t afford to carry on doing this for free, or believe that it is time to generate some revenue for their hard work. Clearly this may be driven out of our current economic times and the demise or online advertising revenues in any sort of scope predicted in years gone by.
A great current case of this is The Times, UK press. They have moved behind a pay-wall, which moves their content out of the eyes of the free online viewer. Does this support their business model, reduce their readership and in effect start the beginning of the end or put forward a model old media should have moved towards long ago but were too busy dreaming the internet bubbles up with the rest of the world. Who knows, only time will tell, but maybe The Times will feel the pain most sharply being the first mover, it’s not a move I would have wanted to make, especially when the competition is fierce and the articles far from unique.
I think we have a great opportunity for right wing news and communities to flourish in their wake.
Read the Guardians response: http://bit.ly/9nJtox
We have used paywalls in our company as we cant afford to give away the content due to the initial cost of creating it. Going forward I am unsure what to do as take up has not increased, but we need revenue?
A rather late reply from me, but I would look at the business model that you use and see where you can provide free content and where this can lead to a need or desire for premium content. This is clearly a well documented ‘freemium’ model and seems to work very well. Locking all your content down behind a paywall is going to stop all new business in todays open society so a mixed approach seems sensible.
Maybe The Times are too big to worry about it, maybe News Corporation should start rethinking its own business models, who knows!?