Micropayments preferable to subscription

Murdoch take note:

http://www.nma.co.uk/consumers-prefer-micropayments-to-subscriptions-for-content/3006614.article?nl=DN

And those micropayments are going to have to be as passive an experience as you can imagine…

Oxfam release online-only documentary

How wonderful:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/nov/06/oxfam-bangladesh-cyclone-aila

An interesting new interactive format from none-traditional publisher (Oxfam), using a traditional publisher (The Guardian) to plug into the audience.

Misleading Headline and Murdoch thoughts: Pt 2

The headline is ‘Murdoch Considers Blocking Google News’, which is absolute commercial suicide. However, it sounds from the quote like Murdoch wants to restrict the amount of content available for free which is a different thing.

We have it already with The Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it’s not right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story, but if you’re not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a paragraph and a subscription form,” Murdoch said.

That point in the user journey where you feel like you’ve had your wrist slapped, and can’t have anything more is always difficult. But with smart design, it could work. I’m thinking of something like the Oyster Card or Pay as You Go phones: you play happily for a period without too much of a reminder that you’re constantly paying, with periodic and softer reminders to ‘top-up’.

Full article on NMA:

http://www.nma.co.uk/murdoch-considers-blocking-google-news/3006391.article?nl=DN

The future of news

Rupert Murdoch is correct to begin the process of charging for news content.

There are some business models that are proven to work, online:

• micro-payments in games
• brands paying for engagement and not clicks
• in-video advertising
• subscription services

There is no workable business model for newspaper content online, aside from specialist content.

What does that mean? It means that talented individuals working in news-gathering and reporting are becoming fewer, and that is bad for our democracy. We need those voices on the frontline, and yet foreign correspondents are diminishing, experts in fields like environmental journalism are leaving the industry and moving into academia.

Can they move into the online journalism? No, because there are barely any well-paid journalism roles, online. The minority of winners are self-publishers. Making a personal destination site for news, alongside major players like the BBC is remarkable, not commonplace.

So we’re in a weird in-between phase, where publishers have to be brave enough to try new business models.

Some things can be made cheaper or even free, by emerging technology. And hurrah for that. But this expectation that everything can be free, is wrong. Good for Rupert Murdoch for beginning the difficult task of finding out how we can make journalism work, online. Its taken the newspaper industry too long to make a bold move, but I welcome it.

Mature

It pleases me that the interwebs have come of age.

Four years ago, when I first started running the website of this environmental symposium, I worked pretty much alone. I had my laptop, my stills camera, my little PD150 and that was it. I recorded everything, wrote everything and published everything. Nobody looked at the site, and there was no opinion about what we should be doing other than mine.

This time around everyone is producing content for the website. We have three writers (one from the Guardian, one ex-editor of the New Statesman, one recent graduate from Kingston), so far three people taking still photos, and a big team from the US producing live streams and VOD that we can embed in our site.

The site we made four years ago is creaking under the weight of the throughput and we desperately need to upgrade, although for now the blog and the galleries are looking great. But the good news is that with all those people running around New Orleans, up in sea-planes, sitting in plenaries and creating great stuff, I can enjoy listening to incredibly smart people or go for a quick walk into the French Quarter… which i;m going to sneak out and do now.

(The RSE journal is here: http://www.rsesymposia.org/more.php?catid=193&pcatid=184)

Memphis with Louis

Yesterday, I was waiting for the lift in the Peabody Hotel, Memphis. I should explain that for the last 24 hours I’ve been bustled out of the way more times than I can remember, by very serious and imposing heavies who are in the hotel with Louis Farrakan. The drill is: sweep small person out of way with too much force, then apologise for the inconvenience in manner of slightly scary droid. 

When the lift doors opened and there were 15 or so massive security fellas in full Nation of Islam uniform. They looked as if some Japanese train worker had swept them all in, and poked their legs in last. I looked at them. They looked at me. I looked at them. I smiled. One or two of them started to smile. And then we all cracked up laughing. Doors closed.

Nobody can be taken seriously when folded into a lift with 14 other oversized (and impeccably uniformed) bruisers. But I suppose saying the things he says, Louis Farrakan needs good security.