News Corp Will Charge For Newspaper Websites 453
suraj.sun writes "Rupert Murdoch says having free newspaper websites is a 'flawed' business model. Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation's newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a 'malfunctioning' business model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street Journal, the billionaire media mogul last night said that papers were going through an 'epochal' debate over whether to charge. 'That it is possible to charge for content on the web is obvious from the Wall Street Journal's experience,' he said."
Screw them (Score:5, Informative)
WSJ gives free access to premium content if you are being redirected from google, facebook, digg etc. Here is a dirty little secret. The entire content on WSJ is available to you for free, if you can trick WSJ into believing that you have been directed to their webpage via digg.com!
Step1) Use firefox
Step2) Install refspoof http://refspoof.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
Step3) Install greasemonkey https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748 [mozilla.org]
Step4) Install this script in greasemonkey http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/42134 [userscripts.org]
Step5) Profit!!
Go right ahead (Score:2, Informative)
Please, oh please do so, Mr Murdoch. Because I really want as much of your business as possible to fail.
Re:Screw them (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't want to install that stuff, and you come upon WSJ articles infrequently then there is another trick:
1. Click on the regular "for-pay" link.
2. When you get to the irritating half-article thing, just cut the link from the toolbar.
3. Paste it into a google search.
4. Click on the first link that comes up and read the whole article.
Re:The P0rn option... (Score:3, Informative)
Wikipedia started out as total crap.
Britannica was brilliant.
So how do you explain the shift from one to the other?
People are satisfied with the FREE version if they perceive it as a) X% as good as the non-free alternative (feel free to insert whatever percentage you think is correct) and b) more convenient.
EVEN if Britannica had been free, but required registration and log in to access, I believe people would have moved to Wikipedia because it was MORE convenient.
Re:Another smart move from the movers and shakers. (Score:3, Informative)
The D section of the WSJ still has original stories. Becky Quick who is now on CNBC used to write there some years back. all her stories were orginal and not AP reprints
Re:Another smart move from the movers and shakers. (Score:3, Informative)
The Financial Times is essentially the British version of the Wall Street Journal. Different publisher, but it covers the same niche in a different geographical market.
Re:the sad thing is (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the sad thing is (Score:2, Informative)
Love him or hate him, Rupert Murdoch is no fool. If anyone can make that concept work, he'd be one to do it.
And you're welcome to call it Faux News all you want to. Get off your high horse and realize that as much as you don't like this or that media outlet, they all have offices filled with people who spin stories one way or another.
They're called editors.
Re:Another smart move from the movers and shakers. (Score:3, Informative)
Part of the problem is the obscenely high rates newspapers charge for ads on their websites. Where I work, we do media buys, and often get quoted prices over $10 CPM. With click-through rates usually under 0.2%, the advertising is ridiculously over-priced -- so no one who doesn't have very deep pockets buys it. I imagine most of their advertising is remenant ads bought in bulk by large corporations.
Re:WSJ (Score:5, Informative)
[citation needed]
OK [latimes.com]
Re:Another smart move from the movers and shakers. (Score:2, Informative)
The Economist, which is also read by people who have money to spend, used to charge for online access, now all the articles are available for free (the complete print edition).
Re:the sad thing is (Score:4, Informative)
The only channel that provides both the "big government is the only solution" and the "government is the problem" viewpoints.
Ah yes, "big government is the only solution" as long as republicans controlled Congress and the White House, then "government is the problem" the moment Obama took office.
Yes, the channel that:
1. Cut its' teeth perfecting the propagandist ad hominem attack on Bill Clinton.
2. Led the media charge in subverting the 2000 presidential election.
3. Shifted gears by endlessly repeating that criticizing the president is unpatriotic (USA - love it or leave it).
4. Distorted public perception of Kerry in 2004 by attempting to ridicule him at every opportunity, via ad hominem attacks, of course.
5. Attacks the current president at every opportunity, organizes nonsensical, astroturf tea bag protests and openly talks of insurrection and state secession, because now, by their own amnesiac and twisted logic, it's patriotic to be unpatriotic, I guess.
Now, if someone like Olbermann or Maddow had their show on Faux (and in prime time, as opposed to buried in the 3am slot), I would concede your point, but having a mousy, token pseudo-progressive like Alan Colmes, who willingly and meekly took nightly prime-time punishment at the hands of Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Ingraham, etc, is not a sincere execution of representing all viewpoints.
In fact, it only makes the incredible shrinking Faux audience reinforce their misguided belief on at least two fronts: ...who consider illogical, hysterical talking points such as "Is Kerry a flip flopper?", "Some people say that the latest Bin Laden tape is an endorsement to Kerry", as legitimate and debatable.
1. Them lib'ruls are creepy looking academia types in tweed...
2.
And then, they hire Karl Rove, of all people, the prince of fucking darkness itself, as one of their payroll spinmeisters.
Make no mistake about it, Faux was not designed to be a money making operation in and of itself, but to push an extreme right wing agenda, to create a climate where even centrists (such as Clinton, Kerry and Obama) are tagged with that tired old canard, pinko communists.
Well, no mass media corporation has lost more money in the current socio-economic climate as News Corp. I must admit, to see it collapse along with Clear Channel, who recently laid off 3000 employees while simultaneously extending Limbaugh's contract for over 200 million dollars, will create the most satisfying sense of schadenfreude, along with returning some sanity to public discourse in the airwaves.
Other channels like CNN or NBC sound like they are personal spokespersons for Speaker Pelosi.
Sad but true. I'll chip in state that you forgot the do-nothing, good-for-nothing gentleman from Nevada, Harry Reid. Yes, the system is broken and needs a spectacular shock, such as a grass roots, legitimate third party to fearlessly challenge the corporate lobbyist paradigm in Washington. In the meantime, however, in this seriously flawed world, I'll take Pelosi over Tom Delay as Speaker Of The House any day of the week.