When paywalls work in publishing

Monthly Archives: November 2009

When paywalls work in publishing

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newspaper

Today in the UK the Johnston Press, a large local newspaper group, put its online content behind a pay-wall, while BoingBoing wrote an engaging – yet completely unrelated article on paywalls.

For me this smacks of desperation.

We know that the publisher is in trouble so perhaps some income is better than none, but surely the income from a paywall will be negligible?

Today’s post on Boing Boing summed the argument up for me. To succeed with pay-walls, publishers need not only an established monopoly on something valuable (local news, scoops, reporting quality) but also a plan to translate that into advertiser interest. Paywalls alone, unless they are ridiculously expensive, just won’t be enough.

The Johnston Press doesn’t have a monopoly and locals can turn to the BBC, Commercial Radio and other local and weekly papers.

The other question their paid for strategy raises is whether or not it offers anything to advertisers? My hunch is that they will lose thousands of unique users who are currently eye balls for advertisers.

Where paid for strategies work is when there is high value content. This blog keeps banging on about Manchester Confidential, but isn’t their business model the classic example of when payment can be charged? The site has original content, an extremely local focus and with very little competition.

Yes, The Manchester Evening News has food reviews too, but it’s not the same as ManCon, which has unusual content and can innovate because it is not tied to a publishing giant.

Good luck to Johnston Press, I hope the management has an ace up their sleeve.

Links 28 November 2009: (Why I turn to the internet as my first source of news and entertainment)

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Here are a few links of interesting “media” stories, which tickled my whistle this morning.

TECHCRUNCH
techcrunch

I recently contributed to a feature for How-Do on Twitter and Mob rule, which was written by @LauraSpence. I wish I had raised a few of the points on realtime news that was written in this article . I also wanted to write a post for my blog on the Tiger Woods story, but I think realtime news has passed me by, as this article sums everything up.

Amazing picture of the Sun
The sun
This stunning photograph of the Sun was trending on Popurls.com and appeals to anyone with an interest in nature, and the natural patterns that lie within the world around us. Beautiful, and an example of the internet at its best.

RIP Technics
As a man who has several thousand 12 inch records, and a proud owner of a set of Technics 1210s, I was very said to read this last night, which shows that Panasonic has decided not to make their iconic turntable any more. The geeks among us will read the online chatter which takes the line that only the MK2 will cease production, but the official line is that the MK5 is for the chop too. It could all be a clever PR stunt and I will be looking into this in more detail.

If true, these are dark days for music fans, but the technology has moved on. All I need now is to pay someone to sit and digitise thousands of my records – a thankless task, but I am willing to pay.

The BBC keeping Cyberspace open to the public
This is an interesting read. For me the BBC should be a major battleground for Labour at the next election. It looks like Cameron has signed a deal with Murdoch to cut the BBC down in size in return for News International’s support. This article shows why we need a big BBC. I am sure the public would back a party which fought the corner of the Beeb.

Ikea Facebook row rumbles on
Yesterday I posted about a clever social media stunt by Ikea. Yesterday Craig McGill added a neat twist. Read here for more information

Seth Godin
And finally, something on the internet which annoys me. Seth Godin’s blog is one of the biggest draws in the Blogosphere, but does anyone else think that his content is crap? The Yanks really go for this sort of self help, psychobabble.

So this is why I turn to the internet for news. I went to the corner shop this morning and bought a copy of the Guardian, but I haven’t even looked at it yet. Instead I’ve tapped into five stories which have defined my morning.

My self-hosting experience and advice (WordPress)

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Wordpress

WordPress is, for me, the number one social media platform, and it is not just me that thinks this, according to recent reports.

 

I took my blog ‘self-hosted’ this week, an action which coincided with a report in Techcrunch that highlighted a boom in blogging compared to micro-blogging.   

Personally I think Twitter is responsible for this boom because for millions of users like myself the service is the gateway to finding the best blogs on the blogosphere, inspiring others to take up writing.  Also, the demise of Twitter is much over reported.  Yes, growth in visitor numbers to Twitter.com has flattened, but who visits the site anyway?  Most of us use Tweetdeck or another sort of client.

 

But, alas, I digress….

 

I wanted to write this post to celebrate the beauty of taking your blog self-hosted, share some of the highs and lows, and to thank @vinceapplemac who helped me.

 

Hopefully this post will prove useful to someone else going through the self hosting process. I’m better at developing content than technical geekery, and I guess there are lots of people like me, who could find this post useful.

 

Firstly, I decided to use WordPress.org as a content management system (CMS), because the tool is itself a form of social media and there is huge interaction with other bloggers on the platform and beyond.  The ‘social’ aspect of blogging platforms are often much overlooked because many just consider blogging as another form of publishing. WordPress.com was simply brilliant because it is so ‘social’. I think .org is even better in this respect, so think wisely before choosing your CMS!

 

I also chose WordPress.org because it has much wider functionality than WordPress.com, which was so easy to use when I was starting out.  The .org version is even better because there is added fun to be had via a myriad of plug-ins.  The plug-ins cover everything from widgets for buttons to LinkedIn , through to SEO optimisation .  There is a widget for everything. 

 

Next I bought a domain name, storage space on a server which sounds complicated, but is in fact easier than buying your shopping from Tesco.com.

 

Being a PR person, I am much better at the content side than the technical aspects, so I sought the counsel of @vinceapplemac , who linked WordPress.org to my domain and migrated the content from my existing blog to the new site.  Vince tells me this process is also easy, but it was a bit complex for me, so I recommend seeking some help for this step.

 

The next few days were spent setting up functionality, playing around with the plug-ins and reading up on some of the differences between .org and .com. 

 

I also found this resource which I think people will find useful.  The presentation is for beginners, but I guess some people reading this will be beginners too and might find it useful:

 

How To Get Started After Installing WordPress ( Wordcamp, Delhi )
View more presentations from abhim12.

 

I hope this was helpful for you!

John Prescott is the Real Deal

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Obama should become more like British politician John Prescott.

In a week when Obama disclosed that he has never sent a tweet in his life, despite having over 2million followers, John Prescott’s web presence should be lauded.

Like him or loath him, in a world where PR tries to control every message, Prescott is keeping it real. His views are his own, his principles are there for all to see and it is this honesty that is part of his charisma.

You might not like his views on Unions etc but if the Tories win the next election, then we will go back to a day when Britain was run by old Etonians, who have some strange views on Europe and anywhere north of Luton.

The rest of the political world should be looking at the approach of John Prescott to social media. As there are some easy wins here. Especially on blogger engagement.

I am sure John would say that he’s not a techy, and I can see ways in which he can make better use of social media tools. (Get on Posterous or Tumblr John! They are great easily for sharing information), but this technical skill matters not.

What works for John is that he can shoot from the hip and by and large be on message. Social media is perfect for politicians who feel able to do that.

John is combative and also interacts with his audience and retweets things he agrees with.

His blogging is insightful and you warm to the guy because he makes statements that he believes in, whether you agree with him or not.

I used to work with a chap who was one of Prescott’s special advisers, Tony Sophoclides, and he told me what a genuinely great guy John is. At the time I didn’t believe him.

Bland political figures are ruining politics and feeding groups such as the BNP, so more open politicians are needed.

Thanks to social media you can now get up close and personal to politicians in a way in which you couldn’t before. In my view all politicians should follow the Prescott model – starting with Obama.

SERVICES