Tag Archives: paywalls

Journalism’s salvation is hiding in a mountain of data

By Michael Becker | Published: August 3, 2010
Matthew Ingram writes at GigaOm that the newest defense of pay­walls for news­pa­per web­sites is to com­pare them to subscription-based ser­vices that have found great suc­cess, such as HBO or Sirius satel­lite radio. The par­tic­u­lar exam­ple Ingram notes comes from vet­eran tele­vi­sion host Peter Funt, writ­ing in the Wall Street Journal. Funt con­tends that peo­ple com­plain­ing [...]
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Whistleblowers probably won’t like paywalls

By Michael Becker | Published: July 26, 2010
.bbpBox19591464433 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/10653372/coloursbgd.jpg) #ffffff;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block} I think that if I were a whistle­blower, I would have no inter­est in tak­ing my brown enve­lope to a media orga­ni­za­tion with a pay­wall.less than a minute [...]
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New York Times plans to start charging its Web readers

By Michael Becker | Published: January 20, 2010
The New York Times has announced plans to start charg­ing fre­quent read­ers for access the Times’ Web site. The paper says it will be a metered sys­tem, mean­ing that read­ers will get “a cer­tain num­ber” of arti­cles for free before being required to pay. My notes on this news: NYT will take this step, “a step being [...]
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Maybe paying for news online is a good thing

By Michael Becker | Published: October 26, 2009
The Columbia Journalism Review tells me that the Wall Street Journal has sur­passed USA Today in cir­cu­la­tion num­bers, mak­ing it the most widely cir­cu­lated news­pa­per in the country. Note too that the Journal has seen growth in its cir­cu­la­tion while also charg­ing for its online con­tent. Newsday will also start up a pay sys­tem this [...]
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Foley: “We will witness the collective suicide of scores of news organizations”

By Michael Becker | Published: September 27, 2009
I missed this back in August, but it’s worth a look even now. Stephen Foley writes in The Independent that news­pa­pers that fol­low Rupert Murdoch’s lead and try to charge for their con­tent may be sign­ing a col­lec­tive sui­cide pact. It’s des­per­ate stuff. It won’t work, and if news­pa­per exec­u­tives on both sides of the Atlantic [...]
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