Brill's letters of intent commit newspapers only to sharing information and talking with his company, which wants to sell them micropayment technology. In terms of technology, this is a long-solved problem, but Brill is trying to conjure something more: A consensus that everyone take the jump at the same time. No publisher wants to be charging while his print competitors are still giving away his "premium" content for free. Brill's mission, then, is to make paywalls seem imminent and inevitable, one press campaign at a time. He should hope publishers don't ask too many questions about his plan.

Brill's latest venture is a completely unnecessary company offering internet micropayment software, which already exists, to newspapers, which emphatically should not be buying it. It's one of the stupidest ideas we've ever encountered. But! Brill says he has letters of intent from 506 newspapers, right in his pocket. "This is a pretty good milestone," one of his partners told PaidContent.

Yet when PaidContent asked for names of a few of these customers, Brill's Journalism Online Inc. clammed up, "after weeks of promising a list." So observers must decide for themselves whether to trust a businessman who...

...Didn't live up to his word on what he was selling. Customers paid $200 for a year-long Clear membership but were left in the cold when the company closed down, even if they'd had only a month of service delivered. "Senior creditors," meanwhile, got dibs on the company's remaining assets.

...Didn't live up to his word on customer privacy. Brill told customers of his last failed venture, the "Clear" airport fast-pass program, that their personal information would be locked behind "two levels of password protection." Then a laptop with personal information on 33,000 Clear customers mysteriously disappeared, and it turned out the data was unencrypted..

Do newspapers really want this man asking consumers to whip out their credit cards? We'll see!

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times did some digging and found several large publishers have NOT signed on with Brill, including:

• Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal)
• McClatchy Co. (30 daily newspapers)
• Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, etc.)

Gannett Co., with 84 daily papers, declined to comment to the Times.

Last night, media mogul Steven Brill sent us—unsolicited—his thoughts on the possibility of the New York Times charging for its website, which we wrote about yesterday. We will reproduce his thoughts in full, because how often do you get free, unsolicited musings from a media mogul on the area of his expertise (his new gig, Journalism Online, is all about this), even after you have derided him as usually wrong? Brill writes:

1. We have found in creating models like this for our newspaper and magazine affiliates that one of the other key advantages for them is that charging for online will actually enhance their PRINT revenues and circulation. There are two reasons: First, it allows the paper to "bundle" a discount offer for both, so that a would-be print subscriber or renewer can be offered a discount on his online subscription if he or she takes the print edition. (As in "Save 50% off the online subscription if you renew your print subscription.") You can't do that if you're not putting any value on, and not charging for, the online version. Second, if you keep giving one version (online) away for free, then you increasingly undercut sales of the other (print) version, not to mention your ability to raise the price on the newsstand, something most newspapers and magazines are trying to do. The long and short of it is that where papers have charged online in Europe and the U.S. they have enhanced their PRINT revenues. Indeed, the list of newspapers in the U.S. that have not suffered losses in print circulation lately looks like a list of those that are charging for their online versions.

2. In the models we are developing with affiliates, we show that you really needn't give up much if any online ad revenues when you charge online, because you really don't reduce your traffic much. That's because you can use a variety of methods to maintain most of your current (free) page views, such as: only charging readers who visit online more than, say, five time a month; only charging readers who visit frequently and who are outside your geographic base (locally-based online advertisers aren't paying to reach them anyway; or allowing readers to sample the first two paragraphs of a story before asking them to pay. We have created about 15 such varieties of free visits/sampling/charging methods. All of them contradict the notion of some kind of magic "pay wall" suddenly coming down and charging everyone for everything.

Rebecca Dana, reporter for the WSJ's Speakeasy blog and subject of the august paper's sultriest headcut ever, is leaving to take a job with the Daily Beast—her "dream job," she says. "I'm going to write about culture for them, with a focus on fashion. Will also do some editing and some general entertainment/media stuff," Dana tells us. She adds, "You won't have this stipple-portrait to kick around any more!" Oh?

The Claremont, NH Eagle Times folds, leaving the town without a newspaper. The Washington City Paper brushed off criticisms from witless Marion Barry fans who could not recognize the unadulterated brilliance of their latest cover. And other papers continue to try to fashion some sort of overarching editorial philosophy for the Huffington Post. Hint: It doesn't exist.

Do not expect Bill Keller to laugh and chuckle the next time a satirical cable news show comes calling! He says about his Daily Show experience: "Well, that's the last time I try to be a good sport. Even my wife told me that I looked faintly ridiculous, and she was trying to make me feel better. Among the people who would miss us most would be the wise-guy pundits and scriptwriters for satirical TV shows, because they riff on the news we produce." Bill Keller will punch Jason Jones right in the snoot, on sight.

It's not that Clear is bankrupt; according to a FAQ on the company website, it's not seeking legal protection from creditors. It's just that right now "Verified Identity Pass, Inc. cannot issue refunds due to the company's financial condition."

Translation: If you think you're legally owed a refund, we're going to make you sue, as we have a "senior creditor" to worry about.

Of course, Clear customers were already used to poor treatment from the company; as software entrepreneur Joel Spolsky points out, Clear required customers undergo detailed background checks, even though this was a pointless waste of time, since the customers ended up having to go through the same security inspection as everyone else (after they cut to the front of the line, the reward for paying $200/year).

Right about now the customers are wishing they had run some background checks of their own. Brill, who left the company in February, says customer data submitted to the company is safe. Probably.

Brill's latest company, "Clear," which was supposed to save rich people a half hour standing in security lines at airports in exchange for $128 a year, is shutting down. Let's do a quick and dirty balance sheet of Brill's successes and failures—keeping in mind that to do your best is all your mom really asks.

Successes

The American Lawyer: Brill launched what would become the nation's leading legal magazine in 1979. This is not an unqualified success, though, since American Lawyer Media (now Incisive Media) is having problems right now.

Court TV: Brill created the network (now truTV) in 1991. After receiving a huge popularity boost from the OJ Simpson trial, it was sold it to Time Warner in 1997. For which Brill got a tidy sum.

Emily Brill: Steven's daughter, the ultimate narrator.

Failures

Brill's Content: Launched in 1998, this mediacentric mag was supposed to capitalize on America's insatiable thirst for news about the news! Turned out not that many people really care about the news about the news. Not enough to pay money, at least. Stopped publishing in 2001.

Contentville.com: A website selling "a variety of content ranging from thesis papers to ebooks." Closed in 2001.

Inside.com: The legendary media site that launched the careers of many top media reporters and also failed to make any money. The magazine version of Inside was merged with Brill's Content, and the website was part of a convoluted plan with Primedia to corner the market on media trade publications, but the whole thing was shuttered in 2001.

Clear: In the post-9/11 world, Brill noticed, airport security sure was a hassle. People would pay to be "verified" beforehand so they could breeze right through! Right? 165,000 people did, reportedly, and Clear raised more than $100 million from investors, but now it's dead, unable to afford to keep going.

Brill also wrote a couple books which didn't sell all that well and a column for Newsweek, but you can judge those on their own merits. He's not out of the game, though—his other ongoing venture is Journalism Online, a company that plans to help various magazines and newspapers charge readers for online access. Bet on it!
[Pic via]

Brill, among the media industry's more colorful entrepreneurs, has been laying the groundwork for today's announcement for some time. Last month he stepped down from his job running the fast-pass company; in February he floated a not-so-"confidential" memo urging the New York Times to resume charging for internet content.

Now he's launched Journalism Online Inc., whose goal is to make it easy for technologically-challenged newspaper companies to sell online subscriptions and individual stories. The company, which Brill co-founded with former Wall Street Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz and former telecom executive Leo Hindery Jr.,hopes to sell simple software to implement content payment schemes, while allowing consumers to create a single account, usable across all Journalism Online-affiliated publications.

Brill told the Times:

"Much of the barrier to charging online is the transaction friction, as opposed to the actual cost. With this system, you'd have a single password, give your credit number just once."

Trouble is, people with much more tech and retail cred than Brill already offer ways to do the same thing. PayPal and Amazon both offer micropayments interfaces to programmers, as we've noted before. Amazon's sophisticated system can be easily customized, but can also be implemented as simply as including an HTML snippet on a Web page.

Brill has no prayer of competing with either Amazon or PayPal when it comes to scalability, fraud protection, or number of existing accounts. Like countless consultants and software companies before him, Brill's only hope is to convince old-school newspaper publishers they're better off buying overpriced content management "solutions" than building simple, reliable websites using off-the-shelf technology and in-house programming.

Given that newspapers publishers' single biggest Web idea this year has been to recycle the very old "let's charge for content" meme, he's probably on to something.

Arena, a 22 year-old men's magazine based in the UK, is being folded by Bauer publishing. Its final issue comes out this month. Essentially Arena got its ass kicked by GQ and Esquire and every other UK men's magazine. The real tragedy: That Arena cover line saying "BRITAIN'S FASTEST-GROWING MEN'S MAGAZINE."


Media wise man Steven Brill is quitting his boring old job as CEO of Verified Identity Pass (boring!) in order to "pursue personal interests relating to public service and journalism." If his interests don't include bringing back his daughter Emily in a major way, we're not interested.


Here's some "out of the box" money-saving thinking by a newspaper company: the Washington Post is trying to get its union to agree to let the paper create a new job, paying $34K per year, called "community journo": "primary focus of this position will be to report on stories of local and community interest for the Extras and to perform multimedia work; employees in this position may also report for the daily paper." Except they "should not be expected to be promoted to 'reporter.'" The union was like yea right fuckers, that's called "a reporter getting paid $34k."

Martha Stewart Living, in an effort to draw in more advertisers, is going to "broaden editorial focus" by adding beauty, fashion, and travel coverage. Not added: differently-colored pens.

There are two basic ideas that dominate the discussion of how to rescue the flailing newspaper industry. Everything is more or less a variation on these themes. The New York Times is the paper everyone really wants to save, so it's the easiest example to use. Let's explore!


Idea: Charging For Online News
Star advocate: Steven Brill, journalistic entrepreneur and thinker
Details: Brill wrote a big long memo recently on how the New York Times can save itself. In a nutshell: The NYT's site gets 20 million unique visitors a month. If they each pay $1 per month to access the site, that's $240 million per year. Multiply that figure for any pay rate you want. This cash will save the paper.
Problems: First, how many of those 20 million users will actually pay for the site? Take out those who just wander in off Google searches, and casual non-news junkies, and the majority of everyone else, who are willing to settle for free news of a lower quality (look at local TV news. Most people are happy to settle for free news of lower quality). Maybe 2 million paying customers? Say you got 2 million to pay $2 per month. That's about $50 million a year. Not close to the NYT's $200 million+ newsroom budget—which doesn't include what the paper also has to spend on non-newsroom costs, which is also significant. To cover the NYT's newsroom budget alone at $2 per month, you need more than 8 million paying customers. Not likely. If you increase the fee, you make it that much harder to draw in customers. If you assume 2 million people will subscribe, they each need to pay $100 per year for the site. Also not likely.

Idea: The Endowment Model
Star advocate: David Swensen, Yale's star money manager
Details: In an op-ed, Swensen figures that a $5 billion endowment earning 5% a year would cover the NYT's newsroom budget, and it could operate as a nonprofit. Future: ensured.
Problems: 1. As previously mentioned, $200 mil is only the newsroom budget. Covering the paper's full budget for everything would require more cash. 2. A 5% annual payout sounded conservative a year ago. Now, who really knows when we'll again be living in a world where that figure is safe to assume? It sounds like a princely sum these days. Investment losses for an endowment would still hurt the newsroom budget. Just like what's happening to Yale now, for example. 4. Even assuming all goes well, where do you get a $5 billion endowment for a company worth less than a billion dollars?

And for micropayment advocates, see here.

Until questions like these are answered, newspapers are still where they've been for the last five years or more: in a place with no good ideas for the future.

[Note: David Swensen is probably good at math. And I personally think the NYT will have to charge for its website sooner or later, although I don't know how they'll make the math work out. I am not good at math. Pic: Flickr]

Ann Curry at the Today show got the exclusive with the octuplet mom, but Good Morning America got the exclusive with the octuplet mom's mom. How did they get it, according to TVNewser? Splash News paid the lady for the interview, then Radaronline bought it, then ABC paid Radaronline to license it. This whole gossip-laundering business is going swimmingly! Of course, networks don't pay for interviews.

Media thinker (and father of Emily Brill) Steven Brill has a big plan to save the New York Times, which involves charging for the website, better marketing, and maybe not printing on the slowest day of the week. These are all very worthy ideas, so we would just add, Mr. Brill, please order your daughter to resume blogging at once. It will, ah, help the New York Times somehow.


New journalism idea: a site called Spot.us lets you, the public, submit ideas for stories for professional reporters to do. Then the public kicks in cash until a reporter accepts the offer and, ta da, story. "That groundbreaking model has helped Spot.us to midwife and then post six stories in its first three months." PROBLEM IN NUTSHELL.

MountainTime, a luxury travel mag, has been folded by its owner, Forbes Media. If you work for a luxury travel magazine, brother, you're in trouble.

Yes, that Steven Brill — the one who founded CourtTV, Brill's Content and dotbomb casualty Contentville. VIP largely arose from Brill's contention that a private company institute a national ID program in his Newsweek column, where according to Slate:

Brill had the keen insight that it would take an outsider to make the security pass happen. He had no faith that the government could pull off something like it.

Now the Trasportation Security Administration has grounded Clear from signing up new customers until more robust data encryption is put into place. (Photo by Getty/David Paul Morris)

Fanboy 1: You suck for re-cutting 'fanboys.' You really do.
Brill: U suck for e mailing me your bullshit whining. U r gonna like fanboys better because of me and then u can kiss my ass

Fanboy 2: I am going to contact my booker and suggest that as a company, we do not pick up this film for presentation. You have ruined a wonderful concept. Brill: You seem so important and so knowledgeable, obviously you have formed a real considered opinion and the fact that you will not book us into your theatre is so unfair. I implore you sir please reconsider. Direct your wrath at me, but don't take it out on the movie..... What can we do to appease you Chris? You dumb cunt. E mail me again and I will hunt you down fucker... try me.

The editors at /film vouch personally for the legitimacy of these exchanges, but we're not here to arbitrate authenticity as much as look on in numb awe as Fanboys — which by some critical accounts isn't worth the film it's shot on — and its accompanying drama build to a disappointing climax all but guaranteed by the fact that the moral imperatives at stake belong to a few hundred cellar-dwelling Star Wars obsessives and the guy who directed Little Nicky. Is it just us, or do you smell sulphur?

• Fanboys Director Steve Brill Threatens to Kick Real Fanboys' Asses! [/film]

Brill, 25, writes of a tortured decision during her trip to step away from her family, which includes her famously acerbic father, profiled briefly but ably by Michael Wolff 10 years ago. She opens up to a "beautiful" yachtsman piloting her around in a small boat.

I wanted to tell him absolutely everything - even things about my parents and my relationships with them that I was only beginning to come to grips with myself.

"I can't go back," I said under my breath, doing my best to maintain a lighthearted tone. [The yachtsman] couldn't have know that "going back" referred to not only my current job situation, but also to my entire way of life... and particularly to the extent to which I could no longer allow my parents and their values to stop me from experiencing life the way I was meant to experience it.

A close friend encourages Brill to follow her gut and push forward with her decision to make a break with her family. By the end of the trip she had decided, "My parents are out."

I realized on that boat and under those stars that this is what I want to do. I am not declaring myself unwilling to work but rather, unwilling to be conventional. I've been working non-stop on this site and will continue to work non-stop. This is my life now.

Brill writes that she's "striking out ... and striking back" and "going public." As of Friday, that means jumping into New York Fashion Week at an event later in the day, possibly with her friend Devorah Rose, editor of Social Life Magazine.

In a sense, Brill is following in the footsteps of her father, who parlayed his larger-than-life personality and skills as an inside player into American Lawyer and, more lucratively, Court TV. But unlike her father, she's either not the sort to lash or too smart to do so. Brill writes that Gawker's previous coverage took "my private life public," but ends that the post "gave me exactly what I needed: a good kick in the ass to get going. Finally."

[Essential Emily: Confessions of a 5th Avenue Misfit]

Emily's father, founder of American Lawyer and Brill's Content, was born in Queens, as he often reminded interviewers. (Though he did go to Deerfield Academy, the same private school as Emily.) He must be so proud that his daughter, who just took a job at NBC Universal, has risen above such humble family origins. Born rich, and newly thin, Emily has been enjoying the life of a mogul's daughter, according her recent status updates on Facebook, the social network:

• Emily is really really ready for st. barth's...fuel up the yacht bitches...t-1month!
• Emily is playing with her new clothes and toys...and fuck new years i'm counting down to st. bart's.
• Emily is bubbled out...fuel up/wheels up nowwww....bubbles cant make it till saturday...
• Emily is wheels down but her heart is still in the islands...mmm heaven.

Here's the Yale Daily News editorial board, those rebels with a cause:

[W]e reject Brill's pessimistic contention that Yale currently offers too little to sway talented potential journalists.

In the News and in the New York Times, Brill argued that intelligent students consider journalism a career path inferior to that of more lucrative, heavily recruited fields such as investment banking. We contend that the storied legacies of News alumni — from Time co-founders Henry Luce '20 and Briton Hadden '20 to the dozens of Newsies currently writing and editing for the Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker and a bevy of other prestigious publications — suggest otherwise. Bob Woodward '65 never wrote for us, but he's done all right for himself, too.

Also, you just don't understand us, and that's music, Steve, not just noise. Jesus.

Entirely unrelated: Young Sam Brill will, we're told, be heading to New Haven in September.

YJI Adds to Existing Journalism Resources [YDN]