As Murdoch Puts Times Online Behind A Paywall, Competitors Happily Plan To Stay Free
from the good-luck,-rupert dept
As Rupert Murdoch is getting ready to put paywalls on two of his UK publications, The Times of London and The Sunday Times, his competitors are remaining adamantly free online. The Guardian, for example, has been a loud and proud supporter of free content, and now the Daily Mail Online is standing by its free online site by noting:
“A pay-wall MIGHT make a little money — we will make a lot.”
The management of the paper explained that people don’t pay for news — they’ve paid for the convenience of paper, but that online news will likely remain free — and that they’re big enough to make advertising pay well. In fact, it seems likely that if Murdoch locks up his content behind a paywall, that will only drive more readers to sites like The Daily Mail and The Guardian and boost their ad revenue…
Filed Under: paywalls, rupert murdoch
Comments on “As Murdoch Puts Times Online Behind A Paywall, Competitors Happily Plan To Stay Free”
Anagrams Are Fun...
Rupert Murdoch = Turd Chum Roper
AMEN!
Agreed!
I know, everything should be free EXCEPT to when it's your paycheck
fucking assholes
that anagram is pretty funny BearGriz72
It would be interesting to see their web site statistics and to what extent they drop off over the course of this experiment. Of course I could have awoken this morning in bizarro world and Murdoch’s plan totally takes off because people know the value of news. Nevermind, even in bizarro world people know better than that.
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there is no way you will see viewership go up. however, the metrics that would be used here (traffic) isnt the same thing murdoch is aiming for. so just looking at traffic will not tell the story at all.
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What else would one look at?
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bottom line costs and profitability. things that are hard to see by blog writers and new media gurus.
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hi mike!
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C’min AC, when newsday put up a paywall, they had 35 subscribers. They lost 700,000 visitors and monetized 35 of them.
And by the way, this site does okay financially. And yet, everything is free.
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yes it does because the masnick is selling your eyeballs. so the site isnt free because you cannot get the pages without massive amounts of targeting advertising and sponsorship notices. free just means you didnt pull money from your pocket. as for newsday they still have the 1.4 million or so cable subscribers. the 700,000 loss is the freeloaders from outside the area that were not contributing to ad value on the site.
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not completly true. my eyeballs don’t count because i block all ads. BUT he has made money off me directly. I bought the Approaching Infinity book and a t-shirt during the big CFW push. I would much rather pay for something worth it than have to sit through ads (and frankly, some of the ads on this site are pretty annoying, last time I looked) or pay for content.
and i think your analogy is kinda off. techdirt makes all money from ads, but 700,000 ad viewers being lost from newsday are just freeloaders? huh?
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Logic FAIL. Nice one TAM.
News-papers are more convenient for me.
The biggest problem with internet news is that you can’t really swat houseflies with a news-computer like you can with a news-paper. Until they make a swatable news-computer, that swats houseflies as efficiently as a news-paper, I will have a hard time paying for online news because every time I try to swat a fly, I’d have to buy a new computer, which could be quite costly over the year.
Then there’s my weekend hobby of making paper maché art. Again, computers are not a good substitute for the news-paper with this either. I’ve tried.
another brick in da wall
in this case im all for building a wall, JUST dont let him come back out after
PSA
Ok, kids… one more time:
This is your brain — http://idology.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/egg.jpg
This is your brain on drugs — http://foreskinpress.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/rupert-murdoch-star-tv-india-program-guide-channel-guide-programme-listing-foreskin-press.jpg
Any questions?
Mike you should know better this is clearly “Hot News”. As such you shouldnt talk about it lest you get sued.
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BBC news has increased its page views by 200%
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The winner of the Kidney Pie Pubs “how many paid subscribers will rupert get?” contest was announced today. Mary Scott of London wins with a guess of 17 paid subscriptions in 3 months.
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iPad Sales are up due to the news aggregator app named PaperBoy. Apple released dismal statistics on paid subscriptions to online newpapers and magazines apps.
Newspapers don’t sell the news they sell advertising. The news is the content used to get you to look at the ads. The money you pay to buy a paper barely covers, it that, the printing and distribution costs. Newspapers make most of their money from ads. The same is true for magazines. This is also how Google makes its money. The problem with putting your content behind a paywall is if I can get the same content free elsewhere, that is where I will go. A paywall will only work if: 1. Everyone does it; or 2. You provide other services or unique items that make it worth paying for. They only thing I see someone paying the NYT for is editorial content and/or ease of access (ex. the iPad app).
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Rupert Murdoch claims that the Internet is stealing his paying customers. Demands that the government pass legislation that helps underwrite his business model.
Congress rallies to his defense. Passes the Journalism Integrity Support Mandate. Detractors claim that it flies in the faces of every honest American.
More to follow…
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I doubt it’s very often that Rupert Murdoch can talk about successfully passing JISM.
*ba-dum, tssh*
rupert. suck it and good luck w/that paywall since they’ve been so successful in the past.
news is news, i don’t pay my neighbors to tell me what happened on the freeway or the way to work. but then again they aren’t walking viagra ads either
/sarcasm
Bloody Daily Mail
Maybe if we tell the Daily Mail that foreigners, murders and rapists are reading their news for free, hopefully they’ll put a paywall up and we can all be rid of it.
Re: Bloody Daily Mail
Bravo you. Their paywall would certainly need to guage the degree of anger and outrage a reader has (necessary preconditions for liking the paper) before signing up. Questions: ‘Do you think the country is going to the dogs? Why yes! Are you just plain angry about it? Most certainly! Do you know what we should do? Eh, no. Tremendous, nor do we and that makes us so angry! Sign here please.
Murdoch's 'Paywall'
I don’t know whether this has been discussed here. All you have to do to find a paywall protected Wall Street Journal story is copy and paste the headline on the story- even off the link that gives you the truncated version of that story-go to google search, pop the headline in the search blan and you will find the ENTIRE story therewith. Even the links with the truncated dead-ends on line like Slatest Morning News, can be retrofitted to get the entire story. Google, probably holding the WSJ to the letter of the legalities, is responsibile. I wonder if the Murdoch people are even aware this is true.
Re: Murdoch's 'Paywall'
Google, probably holding the WSJ to the letter of the legalities, is responsibile. I wonder if the Murdoch people are even aware this is true.
Yes, Murdoch’s people are very much aware of this. The WSJ worked out that deal with Google early on — and Google now offers a similar deal to other paywall sites, but it’s those sites’ choice.
Murdoch has indicated that he may do away with that deal in the future.
So, no, it’s not Google “responsible” for it. It was an agreement worked out by both sides.
Re: Re: Murdoch's 'Paywall'
“Murdoch has indicated that he may do away with that deal in the future.”
If newsdays 38 paid online subscriptions is any example, its doubtful that he will do away with it.
Murdoch's 'Paywall'
I don’t know whether this has been discussed here. All you have to do to find a paywall protected Wall Street Journal story is copy and paste the headline on the story- even off the link that gives you the truncated version of that story-go to google search, pop the headline in the search blan and you will find the ENTIRE story therewith. Even the links with the truncated dead-ends on line like Slatest Morning News, can be retrofitted to get the entire story. Google, probably holding the WSJ to the letter of the legalities, is responsibile. I wonder if the Murdoch people are even aware this is true.
Mixed feelings
Anything that puts Murdoch behind a wall is good. Anything that gives the Daily Fail more readers is bad. I’m in two minds about this…
I can’t take your word that this is an agreement between Murdoch and Google. The reason: I fail to see how this suits Murdoch’s WSJ in the least. But go ahead, you explain it to me?
gurdian
as i if i buy a paper tend to buy either the gaurdian or telegraph then murdoch can have his paywall. only wish it was a real wall and we could put rupert and his entire family behind it. then drop the lot in the Atlantic ocean.
Murdoch's 'Paywall'
I can’t take your word that this is an agreement between Murdoch and Google. The reason: I fail to see how this suits Murdoch’s WSJ in the least. But go ahead, you explain it to me? (Sorry to have to put this up twice, failed to check the email when there are comments box)
BreakthePaywall
BreakthePaywall! is a free add-on for Internet Explorer (Firefox coming soon!) that simplifies using the various methods for circumventing website paywall restrictions.
Re: BreakthePaywall
I think the best way to deal with a paywall is to go get the story from somewhere else.
Re: BreakthePaywall
Spam, Spam, Spam, baked beans and Spam!
BreakthePaywall
I still don’t see how leaving the stories available to reasonably astute web parsers, benefits Murdoch’s WSJ?
opinion
http://wwww.google.com