[MGP-Forum Announce] Boston researcher thinks TimesSelect experience shows a market for content service charging

[J Fox]

Why is no one mentioning the fact that Consumer Reports (for whom I happen
to work) has 3 million paying subscribers without any outside
advertising.We're the largest web-based subscription site in the world, I
believe.

 

Is it possible that if you offer unique, quality content, people will pay
for it?

 

Jeff Fox

 

 

From: post-bounces at mgp-forum.org [mailto:post-bounces at mgp-forum.org] On
Behalf Of Tish Grier
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 3:42 PM
To: Bill Densmore; post at mgp-forum.org
Subject: Re: [MGP-Forum Announce] Boston researcher thinks TimesSelect
experience shows a market for content service charging

 

anyone interested in the business-side of journalism--as in how journalism
is going to make money in the future-- should be follwing what's going on in
marketing with behavioral targeting and issues of loss of privacy.  As the
landscape changes and more concerns want to fully fund their ventures with
advertising, marketers are looking for ways to gather intelligence on all of
us that they may not be entitled to have.  

That's part of why the FTC is still looking at the Google/DoubleClick deal.

This article from the NYTimes gives something of a taste of what's brewing
in the world of marketing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/technology/02adco.html?_r=1&ref=technology
&oref=slogin

If advertisers/marketers don't begin to use something that targets us, then
the cost of advertising will go down due to the proliferation of it in so
many nooks and crannies.  However, there's got to be a better way than
allowing them access to personal information that, perhaps, they shouldn't
have in the first place.

Best to all,
Tish
(who's working a bit with marketers and p/r people these days--seeing it
from the inside's fascinating!)

Bill Densmore <mediagiraffe at journ.umass.edu> wrote:

MGP2006 alum John Garfunkel has completed an eight-part, 21,000-word study 
about charging for content on the web. Garfunkel, a Boston-based software 
engineer and Princeton University grad, studied available public 
audience-traffic data for the New York Times website during the period when 
access to its columnists and archives were behind a "TimesSelect" paywall.

His report is dense and its difficult to draw hard conclusions from it. But
in 
an interview, Garfunkel makes one key assertion: He says the influence of
Times 
columnists, as measured by they amount they were referenced in blogs,
dropped 
only about 20% during the period their material was "behind the wall."

In general, Garfunkel believes news organizations may be making a mistake by

relying solely on advertising. But he nuances that. "The answer is not in 
charging for content, it is in charging for service," he says. "It seems
there 
should be options in service or avoiding advertisements."

He goes on in an interview: "I found it disheartening that so many
commentators 
like Jeff Jarvis were willing to go to 100% advertising supported. But if
you 
read Neal Postman and any other media commentator going back decades, you 
wouldn't find anyone seriously trusting the credibility of 100 percent ad 
supported content." Garfunkel's self-published study is on his website:

http://civilities.net/TimesSelect

"There is a solution for newspapers to charge money to readers who want to
pay 
money for a premium service of news," Garfunkel concludes. "I don't know if 
it's a viable market, but I have discussed in some more depth in this series

and feel it should considered as well."

Garfunkel says The Times reported it pulled in about $10 million from 
subscriptions to TimesSelect. By comparison, he says, Fox News channel
realizes 
$850 million a year in carriage fees from cable systems. "I think the
economics 
of this bears further consideration by people who care about the future of 
news," says Garfunkel in an email report of his findings.

Garfunkel notes he did not have access to NYT's internal data. "The only
person 
I spoke to at the Times was Marshall Simmonds, mostly to clarify some public

facts," he says.

His key findings, he says:

-- During his study period (with TimesSelect in place) tThe seven regular
Times 
Op-Ed saw their references in the blogs go up 8 times. A non-representative 
sampleset of pundits saw increases of 10 times -- a 20% drop-off.

-- Nielsen/NetRatings data for the period TimesSelect was in place, posted
by 
Jon Dube at cyberjournalist.net, show an aggregate 27% increase in NYT
traffic. 
Garfunkel says this traffic growth exceeds the growth during the same period
at 
comparable, competing websites.

-- The paywall was not the reason that the Times archives did not show up in
a 
Google Web search over the last two years. It was already indexed by Google 
News. Why it did not show up in the web search, was an application of
Google's 
unofficial policy (as reported by Danny Sullivan) to favor non-subscription 
content.

CONTACT: Jon Garfunkel Boston, Mass. http://civilities.net/
jgarfunk at civilities.net / 617.939.3449

FULL DISCLOSURE: The author of this post is a shareholder in Clickshare
Service 
Corp., which has developed a patented system for charging for content on the

web.

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