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New York, 10:11 PM
Mon Nov 16
59 posts in the last 24 hours
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04/15/09
04/15/09
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04/15/09
To do this right they are going to have to build from scratch the equivalent of Google News, Google Earth, Google Groups, Blogger, Picasa and a few other things (using Google products as examples of the state of the art).
I have a feeling a death march project is going to come of this.
02/11/09
Whats funny is that newspapers and magz on the kindle seem to lack any ads, so if this guy's number are right, subscriptions to said service will be far from the amount they get from regular printed editions.
Honestly they should do one of two: give the kindle for free with a service fee, or charge for it like they're doing now, but with a more open interface, like, for example, being able to load my own damn stuff for once (seriously, no PDF? WTF?)
02/10/09
A 5 cent fee for a text message would be closer to a micropayment, and that (considering the actual value of the service) is about 4.99 cents too much. The idea behind micro payments is that they are so low you don't have to stop at every keystroke and check your bank balance.
Kinsley has lost touch with reality (if he ever had it).
02/10/09
It's a chicken and egg problem that's yet to be solved. Any single system setup by a single site is going to be more trouble than it's worth. But a system accessable by MANY sites is something else entirely.
And personally, it's entirely possible that I could easily be convinced to read a NYT article for a penny or so if, for example, they dramactically reduced the number of ads in exchange.
Give me something for my money, and I'm in...
02/10/09
But seriously, if you don;t pay, all you'll get is Fox News.
02/10/09
You are suggesting that the cost of producing Fox News is zero?
Any news organization has SOME cost. If I wanted to call myself a news organization, that would be the time I spend looking for items for my blog.
For a money making news organization, still using free Internet tools those costs would be to pay reporters (whether you agree with them politically or not) to go gather news.
If the organization is in the cable news business there are tons of infrastructure cost that are totally unrelated to news. Those costs are the same for MTV and the Comedy Channel as they are for CNN.
If you are in print media, there is also tons, maybe even more tons, of infrastructure cost, printing presses, delivery, handling subscriptions that also have nothing to do with news.
It is this NON-NEWS infrastructure that weighs down these organizations not the journalists themselves (and by the way, some of the multi-million dollar super stars are not really journalists even if they were once upon a time, do you REALLY have to have a Dan Rather or Catie Couric read you the news?)
Add to the failing infrastructure used to get both print and broadcast news out the fact that for advertising and other revenue sources old media sucks donkey balls. We all know that Craigs list is stealing he New York Time's lunch money and if I want to get the attention of people ready to buy a 35mm camera it's pretty clear that grabbing them when they do a search for such a thing is a good idea. It's not so clear that such people are going to sit in front of the TV set all day waiting for a Nikon ad.
Of course "push" advertising has it's place too. Boeing and IBM advertise multimillion dollar products in newspapers and on TV just to keep name recognition going, not so much in hopes of influencing a Taiwanese businessman who happens to like American sitcoms.
I just pre-ordered a Kindle 2. I'll probably get a newspaper subscription to go with it. If they had a micro-payment option for all or most newspapers to go with it I'd much rather have that than a $10/mo subscription to just ONE paper. I think micro payments are a good idea and are going to be in our future one way or another. I'm not convinced though that it is the ONLY solution and certainly not for EVERY outlet.
02/10/09
As the last post suggests, people will pay to read the NYT. Question is whether it will be enough people to support all their infrastructure.
Compare journalism with music. Many people can play a musical instrument, and quite a few of them do so very well. There are people you will pay $75 or more to see perform, others you hear playing on the street, where you can toss some change into a hat if you are so inclined. There are people who pay for free, and people who only play for friends.
Just as the printing press put book ownership within the common man's reach, the Internet has put publishing within almost everyone's reach. This change just got rolling in the late 90s and we are a long ways from seeing all the fallout.
It's probably going to be a little messy for a good long while yet.
02/10/09
02/05/09
but the same old, "republicans are telling obama what to do" when obama won and they lost is worthless in print or online
new model needs to include new content, which has at least glancing contact with reality
02/05/09
I bet it has something to do with human psychology... but I can't put my finger on it.
02/05/09
Perhaps someone could set up a basic account with a line of micropayment options, like texting on cell phones.
02/05/09
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02/05/09
Is that a red snapper in there?
02/05/09
I bet the Times takes the box.
02/05/09
Now that's a find.
I think taking the box has been the prevailing business model at the Times for a while, alas.
02/05/09
02/05/09
Ha!
Or a flounder.
02/05/09