Online News – Stop in the Road Pertaining to Free News Online?

According to a recent study, we’re not overly impressed with Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for utilization of his online news sites. Of 2,000 people asked if they’d ever purchase online news, 9 out of 10 said ‘No!’ ;.Does that signify Murdoch’s decision to charge users to get into his news sites is foolish?

I wouldn’t purchase news, either, unless…

If I were asked ‘could you ever purchase online news?’, I may possibly say ‘no’, too. After all, in an age when we can usually learn about major events on Twitter before any of the news channels report them, why would we ever want purchase access to their content?

However, I’d, and often do, purchase quality and ‘luxury’ news. I would never pay a dime for one of the shrinking amount of free newspapers passed out on my method to work in a day Nigerian Newspapers, but I’d purchase a Sunday broadsheet with all its extras and trimmings (even though the chances of me actually reading greater than a few pages are really small).

I’ve also been proven to join a settled members’ area on the internet site of a certain football team (which shall remain nameless) to get access to extra content not available on the key website: 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 online? No. You will find usually no more than 2 paragraphs in each image-dominated article anyway. It only costs several pennies to buy genuine so there wouldn’t be much value in using its site. The Times? Maybe, but only if all the quality news outlets starting charging, otherwise I’d just go for the free one.

Utilizing a Credit Card for a 20p Article?

I’m uncertain just how much Mr Murdoch desires to charge his users to read an article, but I’m guessing there is going to be some kind of account that needs setting up. I certainly couldn’t be bothered to get my wallet out every time I wanted to read something and I will be very hesitant to commit to subscribing.

On another hand, if they had the same system to iTunes, whereby you just enter your password to get access to a settled article and your card is billed accordingly, that might make much more sense. But, if I had to do that for every single major news provider, it’d become very tiresome.

Ultimately, they may be shooting themselves in the foot with a extent. If the website helps it be harder and less convenient for me to read an article, I’ll probably go elsewhere. I’d think that I’d always be able to read the news for free on the BBC’s website, which would not be good news for the advertising revenue of the Murdoch online empire.

Copycats

Let’s assume that I really wanted to read an article on a settled site so badly that I handed over my credit card details for them, what would stop me ‘reporting’ on what this article said on my freely available blog? I’d imagine it will be very hard for a newspaper group to prevent a large number of bloggers disseminating the information freely to their users who would gain plenty of traffic in the process.

Recipe for Success?

The success or failure of paid news is in the technique used to charge and engage with users, let’s assume that the users value this content highly enough to deem it worth paying for. The jury is definitely still out on the whole concept and the odds are that lots of will attempt and fail before a profitable system is developed. Until then, we’ll have to hold back and see.