Comments on: Free and fee: Making the online news business viable

By: chris2

chris2 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:52:55 +0000

There is a difference between bare news and analysis of events, which usually entails some ideological component or bias. The former should be freely available, whereas highbrow publications might feel justified to charge on-line readers for the latter, since many readers prefer their news in pre-digested form according to their own preferences. Of course, blogging is changing the playing field once more.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:41:25 +0000

In this most readable piece you have overlooked a critical component of newspaper buying that is not yet available on line. The ease of purchase. For instance when i buy a newspaper… Citizen, Star, Business Day, Sowetan or the Times on my way to work [depending on the day or what i feel like reading,] i give a few coins to the seller and get the paper.I don’t want a year’s supply

On the other hand to buy news content online i have to have a credit card [which in fact i don't possess] and i have to “subscribe” to some news source. In other words pay a large [relatively] lump of money up front.

Now I’m sure that most other countries don’t do this FICA/RICA control thing that we do[or at least none of my readers have ever said so], but for us FICA acts as a barrier to purchasing power on the web.

What is needed for the internet to work is something no one either seems to have managed or no one wants to manage… is a way to replicate cash on the web without having to go through FICA or a bank or some other credit agency.

Therefore i blog for free @ http://blogroid.wordpress.com and in the New Year will start podcasting my new novel, the Jonker Memorandum, a post apocalyptic piece, as a serial, also for free: with the hope that i can generate revenue.

By: MLH

MLH — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:18:24 +0000

The problem with buying any newspaper is all the additional content that I don’t want. If I want news, I don’t necessarily want a gossip section, TV programming, a career section, a local section which is really race-related, etc., so basically, I pay a heavy price to fill my bin with unread paper that would look better left on the trees.
For news, no one beats Bloomberg and Reuters, so I’ll stick to them.
Freemium is about the most irritating policy under the sun. I don’t even bother to go there any more! I’m quite certain that it kills interest rather than sells subscriptions.

By: David Robert Lewis

David Robert Lewis — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:39:55 +0000

I met Stewart Brand, arguably the voice of the information age about 15 years ago. He also created the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link or Well, and imposed a rule – YOYOW ie You Own Your Own Words. The cause of much debate and even infamy when the Zippies made off with a large piece of “copyrighted” material which lead to the Creative Commons. As one of those Zippies, I believe South Africans are losing out by not engaging in the debate on piracy vs ownership vs the commons. If we do not tackle important issues of our time in a serious but throughtful way, we will merely become victims of the attention-deficit economy in which there is no point to the so-called marketplace of ideas, since there is no point to any exchange of value. Which values are we touting? Not the values which resulted in strict copyright nor the values of copyleft. No, the values behind South Africa’s ostrich media are exactly the same as when Cliff Saunders was de facto Min of Propaganda. So wake up South Africa, get with the GPL, Copyleft and Creative Commons debate.

By: Dave Duarte

Dave Duarte — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:51:43 +0000

Thanks for comments, Robin and Akanyang.

Robin, I think that your newsreading habits are more the exception than the rule. If you ask most people what RSS is they won’t have the clue!

Personally, I find most of my “news” (much of it of the citizen journalism variety that you mentioned) via email, Twitter, Facebook and Search.

By: Ariel

Ariel — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:45:36 +0000

i would pay for content, but how do i know it is better than the news that another site is reporting…?

By: Akanyang Merementsi

Akanyang Merementsi — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:10:58 +0000

And I agree with your:

I would assert that all the newspaper’s content should be freely available online, since content is no longer a distinctive value proposition for newspapers.

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:57:52 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by mgthoughtleader: Free and fee: Making the online news business viable http://tinyurl.com/ycqt3mf...

By: Robin Grant

Robin Grant — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:00:13 +0000

“Much news content online is serendipitously “encountered – I disagree with this statement. I have a few news sites that I follow via RSS. They provide me with my news fix. On occasion I may be sent a link, but it is rare.

The dilemma that print companies face is of course the nullification of their printing and distribution infrastructure. But I have no sympathy for them. I have been reading the Mail and Guardian online since 1996. they have struck up a fair balance between print and online content. Their print content is unrivalled in South Africa. This is the future of news.

The predominant act is that most of what we call news is in fact journalistic drivel and sensationalism. People will not longer pay for this stuff.

Another facet of news which will start to become prominent soon is citizen journalism. Its an area that the current format of print media have overlooked. We see it a bit in a few local rages, but there are so many stories that every day people can tell us. Imagine if citizen reporters all could capture criminal events online. We would soon have a real picture about how serious the problem really is instead of having to rely on censored information and news.

I wish all of the new media pioneers the best of luck, and keep on blogging!