Daily Newspaper Online Pricing Scheme

This is based on my daily frustration with the BayArea.com & Mercury News websites.

12/11/02

Cynthia Typaldos

www.typaldos.com

Charging for old news via the archive is like charging for fishwrap.  Old news is nearly worthless.

Some magazines make the new issue only available to subscribers and the previous issues free, but this but in a way it makes no sense for them to do so since their news, in this week's/month's issue is already OLD news.  They never have timely news anyway. 

So what's bass ackwards is magazines with only old news charging for the new issue, and most newspapers with only new news charging for the old news!  It's crazy. 

What makes the Internet makes different for daily news is that it can be redistributed to others by an individual reader (or blogged).  My biggest use of the SJMN website is not for older info, but today's info which I forward to others.  While it is not predictable when this news of interest to me will appear, it is predictable that news I want to share will appear on a regular basis and that I will want to share it NOW.  Given that the true leverage of the Internet is in many-to-many interactions (Reed's Law), and this capability did not exist before, I think it reverses some of the previous rules. 

A simple reputation system can be used to ensure that subscriber login information is not passed around indiscriminately.

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Old news should be free. New news has a fee.

Pricing Scheme:

All news > 3 days old free.  These news stories can now make it into Google creating links around the web and traffic to the site.  People can link to the stories without worrying (and therefore copying) the entire article into their email (because currently the story becomes inaccessible after 2 weeks).

Stories 3 days old or less can only be accessed via subscription (some exceptions, see below). 

Online Subscription Fee Structure must be extremely simple:

• Standard Online Subscription Package - $X/year if paid at the same time as the printed version or paid via credit card.  No pseudonym allowed. 
• All content accessible and free
• Can also view and post into discussion boards (attached to every story) however the REAL name on the subscription service or CC owner is automatically appended.
• I won't go into the details of the discussion boards but they have some key functionality. 
• Pseudonym Online Subscription Package - $2X/year if paid other than as part of a print subscription service or credit card, or if the member wants to be able to choose ONE name for posting other than the name on the print subscription/CC [pseudonym posting].
• same features as above

Exceptions:

• Some content available for free in the 3-day window.  Probably one story per section, chosen by the editor of that section.  All headlines available free.

Why this would work (THIS IS THE KEY THAT MAKES THE SYSTEM WORK).

• Online subscribers can now pass around links, which will work for others who are also online subscribers within the 3-day window, and will work for everyone after the 3-day window.

• Online subscribers will hesitate to pass around their username/password as others can then post in their name (unless they buy the pseudonym online subscription package and they still must use the pseudonym name, cannot create other names).

Prices must be low:  Standard package $10-$15/year; Pseudonym package $20-$30/year.

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C y n t h i a    T y p a l d o s

Software Marketing w Web Collaboration w Social Software

Typaldos.com | Bio-Blog | Blog | cynthia@typaldos.com

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Founder, RealCommunities 1998 w Co-Founder GolfWeb 1995

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