A viewer asks ...
David,
With the whole world going digital and working away from paper; shouldn't your newspaper being pushing people to your website for the complete story? But you are just the
opposite. Your website is trying to push paper. Methinks you got it kinda backwards...
Short answer:
Because giving away free information is not a good business model.
Long answer:
There is a big trend among newspapers/media to slow down giving information for free on the web, and in fact charging for online content.
The argument goes that never in history was news and information free, until the Web came along and newspapers just threw up the info they produced without charging. This has, over time, lowered the value of that information and not resulted in enough online advertising to make up the loss in subscriptions, or so the argument goes.
We are inching toward a new model of both free and paid online products. The first step has been to withhold part or most of the best local info and direct you to the printed paper. You will soon be able to subscribe to the entire paper online, at a cost somewhat lower cost than the printed version. And while we will continue to hold back valuable local information from the free site, we will/are building up other strengths of the free site: breaking news, video, photos, interactivity (like this blog). The future will bring more.
Of course some folks think this is crazy and that the Web is a wild and free place where people will not pay for info. But some papers/media have found that folks will pay something if they see enough value. Think HBO and Wall Street Journal.
As you can tell, I could go on an on. So I'll stop here.
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3 comments:
David,
As I study it, the value of public information isn't closely tied to whether it is free (to the public) and easily accessible or not.
If, indeed, it is less valuable, then it is probably because a greater percentage of the population just doesn't care. Simply put, there is more news happening today (supply) and fewer people (at least as a percentage) who give a crap (demand).
And I am not even going to touch news competition in the area.
I could go on, but a brother has to live and that info is gonna cost you;)
Sounds like you have everything planned out pretty good Dave. It sounds like a pretty good deal to lower the cost of online subcriptions to that of the news paper. I use the internet to get all of my news, however, for me to pay for it, there would have to be some pretty good incentives. I enjoy my blog being posted on community blogs page, although I havent gotten hardly any responses. You should go there and read some. I know we don't see eye to eye politicaly, but I enjoy the debate.
commonsensepoilitics.com
Just go to the community blog section everyone.
I don't think there will be a market for a fee based website. There is just too much competition locally, what with JJ's website and Newscow, both of which are free, and have the same local news stories. The only thing the Traveler offers over the others is that it is the "official" newspaper for the city, and prints all the legal items the city must print. I can't see anyone paying for that though.
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