Posts Tagged ‘paywall’

Observations From London

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

Last week Gene and I participated in the Guardian Changing Media Summit that provided for a number of stimulating conversations.  I wanted to share what I learned during the course of the event and provide my own personal opinion on some of these issues as they apply to the world of digital content and services.

  • The continued growth of “linear” broadcast TV in the UK.  Apparently residents in the UK are watching more regular TV than ever before.  This is in stark contrast to the US where the growth of DVRs and services like Boxee are leading to time-shifting of traditional TV viewing as well as the phenomenon of cord-cutting.  Are the UK and the US fundamentally different in this regard, or do we expect the two regions to more closely align over time?  I suspect things will change once Netflix enters the UK market — not just because of the added competition to companies like LOVEFiLM — but because it may stimulate the shift from traditional TV viewing as broadband continues to take hold in the region.
  • The use of the word “paywall” in every speech and constant discussion of the NYTimes model.  Frankly, I dislike the word paywall.  It implies creating a rigid barrier between provider and consumer at a time when the media industry is desperately seeking ways to strengthen and lengthen customer relationships.  Rather than describing it as a wall of any type, companies should focus far more on the value of the service (that includes the content) to the consumer for which he or she is willing to pay some type of subscription fee.
  • The recognition that charging for regular news and content has as high a probability of success as I do of succeeding Queen Elizabeth.  While most commentary focused on the need to provide unique content, there were few discussions on the need for media companies to recast their value in terms of a service that highlights the reason for their existence, whether that service is in the realm of entertainment, education or something else.
  • Importantly, a week of seeing the sun after non-stop rain in the Bay Area.
Sanjay SarathyTags: , , , , ,
Posted by Sanjay Sarathy in Events, Industry News | No Comments »

Murdoch: Go Back to the Drawing Board

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Rupert Murdoch is out making news today that pay walls are a great idea and fingering Google Search as his nemesis. He’s off the mark on two points.

Paywalls are attempting to monetize access to content. That model died the day Tim Berners-Lee released CERN HTTPd. Raw access to content will or has been commoditized and that trend will only continue. Especially in the realm of content creation where there is little value add (read hard news), there just isn’t enough invested that the crowd can’t do as well or better that allows for simple monetization of that access. In point of fact, using the paywall in such a way that you break the network effect devalues the the content in question by taking it out of the conversation.

This is why I say that Murdoch has the wrong boogeyman. Murdoch is not competing with the Google search and Adwords. He’s competing with Google Reader.

As Reader continues to improve it will start to learn how you consume news and start to make staying informed easier for the end user. The real challenge for major news organizations is how to go back to the product development drawing board and understand their businesses as services that add value for their end users.

Newspapers were begun to facilitate news aggregation and to  make keeping informed easier, more reliable, and enjoyable in the days where telegraphs were expensive or even earlier where 6-8 knots or 20 horse miles per day was the speed of information.

It is now time for news organizations to start thinking about how they are particularly able to add value in ways that leverage the network effect (instead of hindering it) and starts to organize the crowd and the news in ways that both entertain and speed the end users acquisition of news information.

Money can be made and subscriber bases can be grown by major news organizations, but they will be grown because the news business makes a pitch to news consumers that adds value to how the consumer uses their content today instead of simply disconnecting content from the open network. News organizations that choose to try to understand the news I want and offer it to me for one price across my PC, iPhone, iPad, game console, Boxee Box, etc. will give me a reason to be their subscriber.

I’ll note that I have but one login to Netflix and that login knows what I like, what I’ve consumed, helps me find new stuff that will amuse me and comes with a single cross channel price.

Which news organization will compete with Google Reader to make me happy to pay them?

Gene HoffmanTags: , , , , , , ,
Posted by Gene Hoffman in CEO Blog | 1 Comment »