On-line Reports – Stop in the Highway Totally free News Online?

Based on a recently available study, we’re not overly impressed with Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for usage of his online news sites. Of 2,000 people asked if they’d ever purchase online news, 9 out of 10 said ‘No!’ ;.Does that signify Murdoch’s decision to charge users to gain access to his news sites is foolish?

I wouldn’t purchase news, either, unless…

If I were asked ‘would you ever purchase online news?’, I would probably say ‘no’, too. In the end, within an age once we can usually read about major events on Twitter before some of the news channels report them, why would we ever want purchase access with their content?

However, I’d, and often do, purchase quality and ‘luxury’ news. I would never pay a dime for one of many shrinking amount of free newspapers handed out on my way to work in a day, but I’d purchase a Sunday broadsheet with all its extras and trimmings (even although likelihood of me actually reading greater than a few pages are incredibly small).

I have already been recognized to sign up to a paid members’ area on the internet site of a certain football team (which shall remain nameless) to gain access to extra content not available on the key website: video interviews and press conferences, highlights of reserve and youth team matches, live radio commentary on match days.

Would I pay to see The Sun online? No. You can find usually only about 2 paragraphs in each image-dominated article anyway. It only costs a couple of pennies to get genuine so there wouldn’t be much value in which consists of site. The Times? Maybe, but only when other quality news outlets starting charging, otherwise I’d just go for the free one.

Using a Credit Card for a 20p Article?

I’m unsure how much Mr Murdoch wants to charge his users to see articles, but I’m guessing there will probably be some sort of account that requires setting up. newspaper headlines  I certainly couldn’t be bothered to have my wallet out everytime I wanted to see something and I could be very hesitant to commit to subscribing.

On the other hand, if they’d a similar system to iTunes, whereby you simply enter your password to gain access to a paid article and your card is billed accordingly, that might make a bit more sense. But, if I had to achieve that for every single major news provider, it’d become very tiresome.

Ultimately, they may be shooting themselves in the foot to some extent. If the site causes it to be harder and less convenient for me personally to see articles, I’ll probably go elsewhere. I’d think that I’d always manage to read the news headlines for free on the BBC’s website, which may not be good news for the advertising revenue of the Murdoch online empire.

Copycats

Let’s assume that I really wanted to see articles on a paid site so badly that I handed over my charge card details to them, what might stop me ‘reporting’ on what the content said on my freely available blog? I’d imagine it could be quite difficult for a newspaper group to avoid tens and thousands of bloggers disseminating the data freely with their users who’d gain plenty of traffic in the process.

Recipe for Success?

The success or failure of paid news is in the method used to charge and engage with users, let’s assume that the users value this content highly enough to deem it worth paying for. The jury is definitely still out on the entire concept and the chances are that many will endeavour and fail before a profitable system is developed. Until then, we’ll have to hold back and see.