Friday, October 2, 2009

What's your opinion on charging online news content?


Greetings 5ft0s,

Rupert Murdoch is going to experience a backlash with this idea. A number of independent research studies show this was rated unfavourably amongst those surveyed last week. Even better, Google rejected Murdoch's plan.

In my opinion, publishers will find it very hard to charge for news content because there is so much free content swimming around the world wide web. Sure, the Wall Street Journal, one of the newspapers owned by News Corp started charging its user to read its news online. Some publishers have argued that once upon a time, we paid for a news content. The question is, would you pay for it again?

But seriously, no one would pay for news content, especially if it's coming from news.com.au or ninemsn. There are plenty online news websites which write better content.

I'm curious to know if this scheme goes ahead, how much will they charge users for their content. Perhaps it's like iTunes, paying it per article basis. Whatever they decide, it won't just affect journalists, it will affect us as well.

Charging audience for online news content when they can receive it for free is like charging people to swim at the beach. Or ocean, and it's a huge ocean out there.

Now, what do you think about this proposition?

Happy reading,
5ft0

3 comments:

Death Wears Diamond Jewellery said...

agreed! i would never pay for news articles online, especially something so generic. newspapers online get most of their $$ from advertisers- its not needed!

the only online news-content i would pay for would be article based and only after a summary. AND it would HAVE to be something very niche and specialised, like medical journals or something like that.

die ninemsn.com.au!

Five Foot Nothing said...

Definitely, those niche news websites like your medical journals or Lawyer's Weekly have already jumped on this bandwagon in charging their users to read their content.

Emma xx said...

I'm doing journalism and we've discussed this point and to be honest I see why we should pay. A lot of effort goes into writing the content. Journalists shouldn't be short changed for all the work that goes into each article and ultimately all this free content is meaning job cuts in the media. I think we will begin to pay, and though I don't personally want to, I will.

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