The paywall, and the integration of the Times and the Sunday Times behind it, will happily tear up several centuries of history and join the Times and the Sunday Times — and save a fortune, writes Michael Wolff, of Newser.com (http://www.newser.com)
Paywalls
Time for a paywall?
The Time it is a’changing, with stories now cut short online, telling readers to either check out the print edition or the paid edition on their iPads. Is this a paywall without a door?
Why paywall just won’t pay
One internet guru’s prediction about the downfall of print media proved eerily accurate, and now the same man - Clay Shirky - says paywalls won’t work either, because the numbers don’t add up.
Bloggers have feelings (and break stories) too
Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes launches into New Ltd, pointing out how they ripped a story off him just hours after it was published, with no attribution given. A paywall for content pilfered off others, eh Murdoch?
The paywall: will good writing save Murdoch?
It is yet another sign of his abject inability to understand this new medium that Murdoch has promoted wit and style to an important place in his internet strategy, writes Newser’s Michael Wolff.
No new New Matilda…yet
New Matilda editor Marni Cordell discusses the precarious future of the website: yes, it is still closing, unless a knight in shining armour appears very, very soon.
The Times they are a-changing
An examination of two very different paywalls, the NY Times and Rupert Murdoch’s UK The Times. One’s an nearly impenetrable steel wall, the other lets non-paying visitors slip through the gaps.
The price of paywalls: blocking out the bloggers
The most popular outlets for bloggers to link to are traditional news sites like NY Times and the BBC. So how will the proposed NY Times paywall affect its blogger audience?
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: A matter of principle in the asylum seeker debate
The immigration and population debate is getting heated in Crikey’s comments section, with economic migrants vs. actual asylum seekers and whether boat people are just paying to jump the queue.
Kohler: Rupert’s wrong: distribution, not content, is king
Content is not king and never has been. That was a journalistic delusion. The uniqueness and the money in newspapers has always come from distribution.
Beecher: Why Murdoch defies gravity while other owners have to play by the rules
The fact that News Corp loses a great deal of money on its flagship newspapers doesn’t necessarily mean this is not a profitable formula.
What’s Murdoch got to lose?
Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper is hemorrhaging about £1.5 million a week — so while erecting an online paywall may seem risky, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain, says media consultant Philip M. Stone.
Bartholomeusz: Murdoch isn’t building a wall — he’s building a fortress
News Corp has decided has decided on a very thick and crude pay-wall model for its UK paper The Times, says Stephen Bartholomeusz: no bundling, no micro-payments, no tiered access. It’s all or nothing with Rupe.
Why Murdoch’s paywall may not be so mad
If The Australian follows the recently revealed online paywall model for the UK’s Times, it will only need 50,000-odd subscribers to make it worthwhile, according to Tim Burrowes’ maths.
Murdoch’s Great Paywall Experiment. It begins.
Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers are about to begin charging for content online. Expect the battle between Murdoch and both the BBC and the ABC to reach a new fever pitch.
VIDEO: Life behind the NY Times paywall
New York Times columnist David Carr has a chat with Media Bistro about what it’s going to be like for journalists to go behind a paywall with the planned metering system.
Business As Usual: Business as usual: Confidence and the economy … Murdoch on nicking chips … and censorship or not … China crisis. What crisis
James Murdoch has labelled nicking potato chips the same as nicking online content, China imports and exports have jumped, the UK has been warned to slash spending and more business briefs from across the globe.
Google: How can newspapers survive? Ditch the “papers” bit
Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian offers some advice to newspaper publishers: paywalls won’t cure your financial woes — going big online will. Forget costly printed news: news outlets must go 100% online to survive.
Can the internet kill Rupert Murdoch?
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is adept at hiding his many business failures, writes Michael Wolff, but MySpace — and Murdoch’s lack of internet savvy — is proving to be his biggest public disaster.
Crikey Says: Rupert says content is king. It’s a clothes call
Rupert Murdoch has declared that “Content is not just king, it is the emperor of all things electronic”. Speaking of “emporers”…
Australian paywall just months away?
A fawning article about News Corp’s self-declared “new era of profitability” in today’s Australian foreshadows that the paper will be “at the forefront of the company’s shift to online payments in this country in the months ahead”.
Fairfax goes paywall. Well, kinda
Some stories on Fairfax news sites have been showing only a few paragraphs of the article before instructing readers to buy a hard copy of the paper to read the rest. Is this a paywall strategy in the making?
Paywall FAIL: Newsday has 35 subscribers
In ominous news for the NYT and News Corp, it has been revealed that newsday.com has only secured 35 subscribers since the paper put up a paywall. The account of how the figure came out is gold.
Beecher: NYT to join the paywall brigade
The New York Times will introduce a charge for readers to use its website next year, heralding the most important development so far in the agonising who-will-pay-for-quality-journalism debate. The world of free journalism will never be the same.
Crikey Wrap: Moving with the NY Times
The NY Times has announced that it will resurrect a paywall for its online content, sending media geeks and commentators’ fingers flying over whether it will work and What It All Means. Crikey intern Flint Duxfield takes a look at what they’re saying.
