According to a recent study, we’re not overly impressed with Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for use of his on the web news sites. Of two,000 persons asked if they would ever spend for on line news, 9 out of ten mentioned ‘No!’. Does that imply that Murdoch’s selection to charge customers to access his news web pages is foolish?

I would not pay for news, either, unless…

If I were asked ‘would you ever pay for on-line news?’, I would almost certainly say ‘no’, also. Immediately after all, in an age when we can typically read about major events on Twitter just before any of the news channels report them, why would we ever want pay for access to their content?

Having said that, I would, and normally do, pay for high-quality and ‘luxury’ news. I would never spend a penny for a single of the shrinking quantity of cost-free newspapers handed out on my way to work in a morning, but I would spend for a Sunday broadsheet with all its extras and trimmings (even although the possibilities of me truly reading much more than a couple of pages are particularly little).

I have also been recognized to sign up to a paid members’ area on the web-site of a specific football group (which shall remain nameless) to obtain access to additional content material not available on the principal internet site: video interviews and press conferences, highlights of reserve and youth team matches, live radio commentary on match days.

Would I pay to read The Sun on the web? No. There are usually only about two paragraphs in every single image-dominated report anyway. It only charges a few pennies to get the genuine point so there wouldn’t be much value in using its web page. The Occasions? Maybe, but only if all other good quality news outlets beginning charging, otherwise I’d just go for the no cost one particular.

Applying a Credit Card for a 20p Write-up?

I’m not positive how much Mr Murdoch desires to charge his users to study an write-up, but I’m guessing there is going to be some sort of account that desires setting up. I definitely could not be bothered to get my wallet out every time I wanted to read a thing and I would be extremely hesitant to commit to subscribing.

On the other hand, if they had a related technique to iTunes, whereby you just enter your password to obtain access to a paid article and your card is billed accordingly, that may well make a bit additional sense. But, if I had to do that for every significant news provider, it would grow to be very tiresome.

In the end, they could be shooting themselves in the foot to some extent. If the web-site makes it harder and significantly less practical for me to read an report, I will in all probability go elsewhere. I would assume that I would constantly be able to study the news for free of charge on the BBC’s site, which would not be very good news for the advertising revenue of the Murdoch on line empire.

Copycats

Assuming that I truly wanted to read an report on a paid internet site so badly that I handed more than my credit card particulars to them, what would cease me ‘reporting’ on what the short article stated on my freely available weblog? I would visualize it would be incredibly challenging for a newspaper group to protect against thousands of bloggers disseminating the details freely to their users who would acquire lots of targeted traffic in the course of action.

yoursite.com for Achievement?

The achievement or failure of paid news is in the strategy utilized to charge and engage with users, assuming that the users value the content very sufficient to deem it worth paying for. The jury is absolutely still out on the whole concept and the chances are that lots of will try and fail prior to a lucrative system is created. Till then, we’ll have to wait and see.