According to a current study, we’re not overly impressed with Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for use of his on line news web sites. Of 2,000 folks asked if they would ever pay for on-line news, 9 out of ten mentioned ‘No!’. Does that mean that Murdoch’s selection to charge customers to access his news internet sites is foolish?

I wouldn’t spend for news, either, unless…

If I were asked ‘would you ever spend for on the net news?’, I would most likely say ‘no’, too. Following all, in an age when we can commonly study about key events on Twitter ahead of any of the news channels report them, why would we ever want pay for access to their content material?

On the other hand, I would, and generally do, spend for high quality and ‘luxury’ news. I would under no circumstances pay a penny for one of the shrinking quantity of totally free newspapers handed out on my way to operate 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 a lot more than a handful of pages are very smaller).

I have also been known to sign up to a paid members’ region on the web site of a specific football group (which shall stay nameless) to obtain access to added content not accessible on the primary web-site: video interviews and press conferences, highlights of reserve and youth group matches, live radio commentary on match days.

Would I spend to study The Sun on-line? No. There are ordinarily only about two paragraphs in every single image-dominated post anyway. It only fees a couple of pennies to buy the actual issue so there wouldn’t be much worth in applying its web-site. The Occasions? Perhaps, but only if all other quality news outlets starting charging, otherwise I’d just go for the absolutely free a single.

Using a Credit Card for a 20p Post?

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

On the other hand, if they had a related technique to iTunes, whereby you just enter your password to get access to a paid article and your card is billed accordingly, that could possibly make a bit a lot more sense. But, if I had to do that for every key news provider, it would turn out to be pretty tiresome.

Ultimately, they could be shooting themselves in the foot to some extent. If yoursite.com makes it harder and much less convenient for me to study an post, I will likely go elsewhere. I would assume that I would usually be able to read the news for free of charge on the BBC’s web page, which would not be good news for the marketing revenue of the Murdoch on the net empire.

Copycats

Assuming that I truly wanted to read an report on a paid web page so badly that I handed over my credit card particulars to them, what would quit me ‘reporting’ on what the write-up said on my freely offered weblog? I would envision it would be quite tough for a newspaper group to prevent thousands of bloggers disseminating the details freely to their customers who would acquire lots of website traffic in the method.

Recipe for Good results?

The accomplishment or failure of paid news is in the strategy utilised to charge and engage with customers, assuming that the customers value the content material highly sufficient to deem it worth paying for. The jury is undoubtedly nonetheless out on the complete idea and the chances are that many will attempt and fail ahead of a profitable method is created. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see.