“A sophisticated micro-payments service” will launch this autumn said Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.
So it would seem that plunging ad generated revenue has forced the hand of one of the big players in publishing, to a paid for subs model. Interestingly it would seem that they are looking to adopt a model of micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to WSJ.com, after years in publishing I would hope this isn’t translated as “all news based content free of charge, with all channel specific content and that deemed as high value paid for”. As the only attractive environments for advertisers within news sites being channel specific and premium content, this model doesn’t make for a great bed follow with an advertising business model as well.
It makes sense that news and topical editorial is free, as a driver for topical relevancy in search, but paying for the ‘good stuff’ or the ‘unique stuff’ limits the opportunity to generate revenue from advertising, as these environments are where advertisers want to be and not next to news stories highlighting topics such as economical doubt.
Anyway this is pretty much conjecture on my part, but will be interesting to see what the plan is when it comes into full effect
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