There are lots of reasons I read the Economist. One, to bore the heck out of the folks at VLG with economic minutae. Two, I love economic minutae, which brings me to the subject of today’s post. Paywalls.
Paywalls are those imaginary barricades that keep us from valuable content online unless we are paying customers. It’s nothing new, but the article I read did a pretty good job explaining and projecting how these monetary walls will be used in the coming year.
[You can read the full article here.]
It’s not the erosion of print advertising causing newspapers to consider building walls, but the erosion of online advertising revenue. A decline in print advertising revenue is expected. an industry that now finds itself in the entertainment business might find it worrisome with its inability to transfer offline readers to online readers and offline advertisers to online advertisers.
Let’s try a quick litmus test. Would you pay to read this blog? No. Would you pay to read the article about which this blog post was written? No, because you don’t have to or no, because this blog post told you all you need to know on the subject? No, because going forward you will not look for news, news will find you.
Where do you gather the majority of your news today? I get weather from my colleagues at VLG and my mother-in-law who is addicted to Weather Bug, I think. I get my traffic updates and Dallas Cowboys news from The Ticket (1310 AM) while driving. All but about 10% of my news comes from my wife, my colleagues and other family and friends at no cost.
Someone is getting news from a credible source, right? Finding out who that someone is and convincing them to part with the contents of a pocket book poses a huge challenge to the print industry today. Well, that and maintaining status as a credible source.
Comments