Google To Offer Micropayments To News Sites 155
CWmike writes "Google is promoting a payment system to the newspaper industry that would let Web surfers pay a small amount for individual news stories, an idea that could help publishers struggling with the impact of the Internet. The plans were revealed in a document Google submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA), which had solicited ideas for how to monetize content online, a task some publishers have had difficulty with. 'The idea is to allow viable payments of a penny to several dollars by aggregating purchases across merchants,' Google said in the document. Google said it had no specific products to announce yet."
Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me start by paying nothing for this one, I'll gladly give Murdoch even less.
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is no advertising, I'll pay. But if there are ads, let the advertisers pay. I'm paying for content by looking at ads, if you want me to pay cash for your content you're going to have to give me a clean, ad-free page that doesn't blink and flash.
Funny, the Illinois Times [illinoistimes.com], a weekly Springfield paper, doesn't even charge for its print version. If they can make money from advertising alone, why can't other papers? It's ludicrous that anyone wants me to pay for a web page that blinks and flashes.
And as long as there are online papers that don't charge, good luck charging. As long as there are free sources for news, why would anyone pay?
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
If it were only that simple, I always thought I should support the sites I look at byt not disabling the ads with an ad blocker, but lately it's been pretty much impossible to look at most news sites I go to as all those flash ads causes my browser and computer to crawl. Yes, bit old computer (Athlon - 64 3000+) but I shouldn't have to update my bloody computer just to be able to read some web pages!
So, in the end, I installed Adblock and everythiong jsut works! fantastic! I am still allowing ads on slashdot to show though as it's not enough of them to cause too much harm.
Anyway, if they made flash less intrusive when it comes to CPU hogging I'd appily live with it, but now it's pretty much a joke
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I am still allowing ads on slashdot to show though as it's not enough of them to cause too much harm.
I tried using slashdot without the ads - I use the web site daily and have no problem giving some mindshare to discrete textual ads at a place like this. Unfortunately, every time I try to uncheck the 'ads disabled' checkbox, within two-three page hits I see something in Flash that is either blinking, flashing, or moving at me. It seems that "discrete" simply isn't good enough any more.
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On my Flash-unsupported FreeBSD/amd64 box, it just shows as a blanked out rectangle for which a non-existent plug-in is missing. Sometimes, being unsupported by Adobe can be a bliss.
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On my Flash-unsupported FreeBSD/amd64 box, it just shows as a blanked out rectangle for which a non-existent plug-in is missing. Sometimes, being unsupported by Adobe can be a bliss.
True, but not really the point - I mean, it's easy to turn them off in any case. But I'd much rather sites started to buy a clue and stop accepting that kind of content. Until they do, I keep blocking.
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I was referring to flash, not Flash. Having ads blinking and moving on the same page I'm trying to read is too damned distracting.
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If it were only that simple, I always thought I should support the sites I look at byt not disabling the ads with an ad blocker, but lately it's been pretty much impossible to look at most news sites I go to as all those flash ads causes my browser and computer to crawl.
FlashBlock, instead of AdBlock, works really well as a compromise to allow adds and still have access to Flash on a page. YMMV. For real change we need a way to give a vote or feedback on AD *companies* so they'll force the advertisers to behave; for example, zedo.com uses pop-up's so ban all their AD's.
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I don't see why AP doesn't do this instead of google. Then allow AP to agregate news from the locals and pay them the micro-payment. Essentially, my subscription to AP (which I'm more likely to do than a subscription to google) also accesses the local news. I don't see why the news industry would want to give google probably half or more of the money that they are doing the work for. This also helps prevent google from becoming another evil microsoft. We need to discourage mega-corp's, too big to fail syndr
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"I don't believe it's reasonable to expect all papers to be funded by advertisers. Things like investigative journalism, sending journalists to press conferences, researched opinion pieces and the like *are* expensive, and somebody needs to fund them."
why not advertisers?
Is the problem that advertiser are being charged the appropriate amount? Is it becasue epopel are realizing that ads don't deliver nearly as much extra business as previously thought?
The except is immediate response adds. For example The ju
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I've never really understood this reasoning, people pay for magazines, newspapers, movies,... with a lot of ads in them. But all of the sudden when it's on the internet it has to be either pay, or ads.
I find it completely reasonable that ads make something cheaper, but not necessarily free.
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Then why are we still paying for copies of classic newspapers and magazines even though they have ads in them? Why am I paying for the TV channels I get on cable even though they come with advertising? Why pay admission to a concert AND see ads to various brands everywhere on the grounds?
I like the idea, but are customer pay-per-item and ads really mutually exclusive? And if there's some kind of revolution in the making, what is it? Are we finally saying 'no' to advertis
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Then why are we still paying for copies of classic newspapers and magazines even though they have ads in them?
Because an ad on page 47 of the magazine can't force itself onto page 12 where I am reading.
If the ads on web pages were like those in newspapers and magazines, then I wouldn't need an ad blocker.
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, an indie weekly that is ad supported? How imaginative! It's certainly different from every other ad supported indie weekly!
The problem is, indie weeklies have crap news. If you want to know what band is playing at what club, you can check the weekly. If you want free personal ads, you can check the weekly. If you want well researched news articles about the place where you live, you're outta luck. They may have a couple of op-ed pieces, with-- maybe--one source, and, if you're lucky, the source will actually be a reliable source.
I actually used to run an indie weekly, so I know that of which I speak. Tiny staff, constant pressure to get ads, no ability to tell off an advertiser...I mean, if you were getting ads from the Religious Right, you couldn't write op eds about them, because the money was more important than your integrity. Having to do your own collections; getting paid in fricking barter from small advertisers. It's not a great business.
Your argument is like something I'd imagine hearing when cable companies were starting up. "Who's going to pay for TV?" Answer: people who want more than what you can get in a model that is completely reliant on ad revenue. If your customer is the advertiser, then you are beholden to the advertiser. If your customer is an individual who pays then you have some independence.
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Mod parent up! This is a truth that is too frequently overlooked in Slashdot conversations.
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Peter Wayner gave a talk at Google about helping to pay for shoe leather several years ago:
http://www.wayner.org/talks/gtalk.html [wayner.org]
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Why not get rid of newspapers and just have the journalists. The journalists write the stories where their market is. So the journalist writes for the customer. Then an aggrigator, like Google hosts the articles. Google is responsible for getting advertisers. They know exactly how many people are viewing the page and they know where they are viewing the page from so they can target the advertising. They then split the ad revenue with the journalist based on views and a
Re:Weekly (Score:2)
(Meme)I like your ideas and I want to hear more about your weekly. (/Meme)
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But when speaking about web site, there are so many possible advertiser, and many with opposite views.
Or you have generic ad feeders that don't really care what's on your site.
An indie paper relies on advertisers in the community, web sites do not.
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The problem is, indie weeklies have crap news.
Well lets see, this issue of the IT has "The Governor blames everybody but himself" about his new book; "Remembering Everett Dirksen"; "Haunted hot spots"; "Headmaster's visit" about Obama; "Order in the court" about crime; "East side residents fear a steel barrier at 10th Street" about the high speed rail coming here; "New law prohibits involuntary sterilization"; "High-speed opposition to Third Street rail corridor" among others.
What are the SJ-R's [sj-r.com] headlines t
Re:Great idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, remember how there weren't going to have to be any ads on cable television, because we were already going to be paying for it once?
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There weren't when it first started, the only ads were on the brodcast stations. Then they started running ads on cable stations, now they have the goddamned logo at the bottom right of the screen and the fucktardedly annoying ads for other shows that show up at the other side while the damned show is still on.
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If we do not start paying for our online news, we will no longer have newspapers that offer independent coverage of international news stories, with their own foreign correspondents. Instead, we will only have coverage that republishes newswire articles. I value independent news stories and I'm willing to pay for them. I like the idea of micropayments because it will allow people to read multiple newspapers without paying a costly subscription to each.
For example, one of the newspapers whose international reporting I most enjoy, The Independent (of London), is in financial trouble and needs precisely this type of cash injection. I used to have a subscription (for premium content) several years ago but that model did not work for the newspaper and now all their content is free.
As others have noted, it would be very difficult for just a handful of newspapers to introduce this. However, the news business is somewhat atypical in the sense that most readers do not regard newspapers as interchangeable because they usually have their own editorial line. For that reason, it would not be necessary for ALL newspapers to do this. I try to read politically diverse newspapers, and if one of my main news sources folded I would not be able to arbitrarily plug in another newspaper to replace it. And some of the less mainstream ones are truly unique.
Finally, I would be prepared to tolerate some advertising even if I pay. Some print newspapers have advertising now and one can regard advertising as a way to keep down the price of the paper. The challenge is getting the balance right (both in terms of price and ad intrusiveness).
"we will no longer have newspapers that offer independent coverage of international news stories, "
yes we will, much like we can get that news from people on the ground, for free.
"I value independent news stories and I'm willing to pay for them."
fine, but there are a lot of people who put that information online for free. Meaning they don't get paid for it.
"The Independent (of London), is in financial trouble and needs precisely this type of cash injection."
Clearly not enough people share your view to cover
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Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me start by paying nothing for this one
and I guess your sentiment will be echoed by a lot of people. All we can really do is let the industry die and THEN see if it is so valuable that it needs resurrecting. The fact that newspaper conglomerates keep harping on about how necessary they are for the proper functioning of democracy means nothing to me without evidence and I'm afraid the only evidence that counts is a failed industry followed by a failed democracy. I don't see the later happening any time soon (well no more than is already the case!).
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)
I am interested in your necromancy approach to dying industries, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
But only if it's free.
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
All we can really do is let the industry die and THEN see if it is so valuable that it needs resurrecting. The fact that newspaper conglomerates keep harping on about how necessary they are for the proper functioning of democracy means nothing to me
I don't think the industry will ever die, just the conglomerates . Before they were around there were hundreds of newspapers that served the very local needs they were in. I just moved to a small town and what is in my newspaper? A bunch of AP crap that I can get from any other newspaper or website in any form I want. I generally don't care about the AP stories anyway. As big newspapers die, new forms of media and journalism will grow to feed the needs of the community. They aren't falling victim to the tyrants of the internet - they are failing to adjust their mindsets to a changing consumer market.
I'm not going to pay to look at national ads that I see everywhere, but I don't mind paying a small subscription to read local news and also get presented with ads for local retailers.
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Newspaper conglomerates aren't necessary for democracy, but objective journalism is. Let me lay it out for you.
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Part of the reason that most of us don't value good news is because most of us have never seen "good" news. What we have seen is what you described where papers, magazines, news shows, etc. are beholden to their corporate holders/corporate interests or even their own slanted views.
I and many others like me grew up seeing as news is little more than cheerleading their chosen side with facts that make them look good, while mostly ignoring the facts that don't and/or putting so much spin on the story that the
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Ah, so you've been reading Girl Genius [girlgeniusonline.com] too?
-Ster
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I guess it's not too much of a surprise that on an American-based and dominated website people aren't remembering the major media role played by the government in many other parts of the free world - think BBC, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission, not the US network), CBC etc. Most of whom provide extremely high quality reporting for very very little money (in the late 1980s the ABC cost Australians 2 cents per day each in tax revenue), and deliver most of it without advertising.
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Ahh the glory that is bugmenot.com. Only in a handful of cases have I found a pay site without a login on there.
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Not a bad idea, really. I read news from all sources. I even read *gasp* news sources that are hostile to my government and my country!!
I'd be willing to drop a penny here and there. A nickle for a good story, maybe. At the same time, I'll be more than happy to use bandwidth without paying at those sites that just suck.
Though, I'm sure that the manner in which it actually works won't be to my liking. I would probably lose news sources, or find that I have to pay to use the ones I don't agree with. Tha
Good luck with that one .... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not going to work in a "cut-n-paste email" world.
Re:Good luck with that one .... (Score:5, Funny)
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That's a plus 5 funny right there with no saving throw.
Re:Good luck with that one .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not? As long as the process is quick and painless and the cost low enough (i.e. a few cents), I wouldn't mind that one click to read the full article with images and everything (and without ads).
It's similar to the model of those boxes containing a stack of newspaper to which you get access by inserting a quarter or two. Of course, one could get the whole stack and distribute it for free; but in reality most people will just get one paper (i.e. read the article) and get on with their lives.
Re:Good luck with that one .... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is I don't trust the computer with my money. Even though I might be willing to pay a reasonable small amount for some articles, I do not trust linking my payment information to a mouseclick.
There's been many stories of people running up astronomical phone bills because their phone used costly services in the background with no easy means of knowing what it is doing and what it is costing. I need to be assured that the computer will never run amok with my money - or worse - rack up bills on credit that I then have to pay, whether or not I might have had the money for it.
There is needs to be a built-in stop. In real-life, for example, paying cash, it is very hard to accidentally spend without knowing that you are spending and how much. Even paying by credit card, the bank will call and verify if there's a unusual series of transactions, which serves to limit the financial damage in the event of a "bug". Micropayments needs to solve this problem (for example, by using pre-issued time-time-use cryptographic tokens in lieu of serial-numbered bills) before I am comfortable trusting financial access to a general-purpose web-browsing computer. I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way.
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I would trust my money ( Heck, I do trust my money) to a ITMS style micropayment model. Whenever I buy something from the iTunes store it prompts me for my password and then after the fact emails me a reciept. If Apple can do it, Google can do it.
Of course, do I WANT to pay to see news stories on the web? No I don't. But I could see that someone might.
Re:Good luck with that one .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there could be an easy solution for that: Pay-as-you-Go Micropayments. Charge your Google account with $10, spend that, a penny every few clicks, charge it again.
Now the charging part could turn out to be a bit trickier. Ideally, you'd pay cash for a gift card, use that and be totally safe. Unfortunately, making and selling the physical cards isn't free, so this may or may not happen anytime soon. I'm guessing they'll take credit cards to fill you up. There's always Visa/Mastercard gift cards (non-personal, check with your local Mall) as well as Prepaid credit cards (personal, check with your Bank or credit card institution). Pretty safe, too.
In the end, even if you'd be paying directly from a real credit card, you can always cancel charges.
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It was tried about a decade ago by webcomics. I think Scott McCloud pioneered the idea. People just didn't go for it - the content wasn't worth the hassle of signing up for the account and topping it up. People don't usually pay for newspapers with credit cards, after all.
Your money will get less and less... (Score:2)
Charge your Google account with $10, spend that, a penny every few clicks, charge it again.
Sounds like a Murdoch wet dream...
As soon as you start doing that, just watch the price ratchet go into action: the micropayment amount increases per page, stories split over more and more pages (each paid, but still with advertising), pop-ups tempting you with related stories or with premium versions of the stories with more details and higher prices.
That crap is not for me. I'll stick with news that's paid for in other ways (news.bbc.co.uk, yle.fi/uutiset, etc.) and is more reliable and trustworthy than
I like it (Score:5, Interesting)
Much like the moderation system on Slashdot, I will use my "mod points" sparingly.
Specifically to the non-retarded journalists that can use a fucking spell checker, actually look for glaring grammatical mistakes, and just plain, what-are-you-blind-?-fuck-ups.
If I am going to pay for a news article I want it to be written so well the words feel like "wiping my ass with silk".
Ohhh, and I want to be able to take back money from journalists who write anything about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and their respective twats.
P.S - A *very* important feature. I want a checkbox that says, "at no time will your money ever go to Rupert Murdoch".
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Specifically to the non-retarded journalists that can use a fucking spell checker
Dew knot thrust yore spill chucker.
I don't want to read spell-checked words, I want to read words that have been written by someone literate who knows how to spell in the first place, and checked for typos by professional proofreaders. Your spell checker doesn't know the difference between lose and loose, and if you don't either there's no way in hell I'll pay to read your stuff.
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Dew knot thrust yore spill chucker.
How many spills can a spill chucker chuck, if you put a dew knot in it before thrusting?
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Nah I doubt it. Considering News sites generate ALOT of traffic (Heard a rumour its second only to pornography, but thats just a rumour) they could charge 1 penny a page and still make a killing.
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> they could charge 1 penny a page and still make a killing. ... as long as the overhead costs don't eat it up. The micropayments provider has overhead of their own (dealing with credit cards, fraud, maintaining accounts, bills, hosting, etc.) If they want to charge $.005 per transaction, that's half your "killing". If they need $.009 per transaction, what's left isn't worth much.
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P.S - A *very* important feature. I want a checkbox that says, "at no time will your money ever go to Rupert Murdoch".
Rupert Murdoch published Fight Club despite his own personal dislike for the moral of the story (no surprise that he'd dislike the moral since it was aimed squarely at him and his ilk). The guy ain't all bad.
Re:I like it (Score:4, Funny)
Not ALL bad. I would say about 99% bad.
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P.S - A *very* important feature. I want a checkbox that says, "at no time will your money ever go to Rupert Murdoch".
Rupert Murdoch published Fight Club despite his own personal dislike for the moral of the story (no surprise that he'd dislike the moral since it was aimed squarely at him and his ilk). The guy ain't all bad.
And he did that on the general principle of it, rather than "Hm. This calls people like me out for being soulless bastards who'd sell our own mothers for a sawbuck... but I bet it goes best-seller!"
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He's in business. that is the general principle of it.
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Touche.
But the point stands: That was a shitty example of something that suggest the guy's "not all bad," rather than proving the book's point.
Yay! No more ads! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they're getting paid already, that means the banner and intrusive flash ads on news sites will stop, right?
(Sure it will)
Re:Yay! No more ads! (Score:5, Insightful)
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and I would if it didn't cost me a decent seat
Here in Sweden, seats are numbered and reserved on the ticket. Is it different in the US?
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Yep. The major US chains (Regal, AMC, Ultrastar) all have unassigned seating. Basically first-come first-pick. So if you want to get a seat in the middle that is a reasonable distance from the screen you had best arrive 30-40 minutes before showtime and camp out in those seats until the movie starts.
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Will you Europeans PLEASE STOP THIS! You know damned well that we don't get reserved seating in theaters. We have to pay outrageous fees for texting, medical care and overlarge whales of vehicles that get worse fuel economy than the Titanic. We even had to elect George Bush TWICE.
It's really hell here. Give us a break, will you?
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Then why go to the movies? I've been to 3 movies in the past couple years. The Seven Samurai, and Christmas on Mars, both at a local indie cinema. No previews there. And Star Trek, but that was worth it to see it on IMAX anyway. Otherwise, I wait for the DVD. Why pay $15 for two to see it in the theater when you can buy the DVD for that much, make your own popcorn, and even smoke pot and drink beer during the movie?
Oh, I forgot about Up. That was worth it for the 3d. Really nice movie BTW.
Maybe I'm the Only One (Score:5, Interesting)
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Uh... the NYT? You're already choosing to pay for slanted partisan coverage, so why should I believe you when you claim otherwise? It's far easier and safer for me to sell you tables of inflated Iraq body count figures and "it's teh OIL stupid!!!" exposes and just label it "fair and balanced".
You know, business as usual.
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That reminds me of how the US court documents public access system works, where the indexing information is essentially free, and the cost of maintaining the extensive parts of the archive is offset by a $0.02/page (or thereabouts) document viewing fee which is charged $10-at-a-time to your credit card.
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There's actually a reason for this, and it's probably why the broadsheet isn't going to go away.
A broadsheet covers many articles on a page, while most news websites are one-article-per-page, with headlines (and
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Slashdot trolls have polluted my mind (Score:4, Funny)
When I saw "Google submitted to the Newspaper Association of America (NAA)", my immediate thought was that Slashdot had been hacked by a certain troll organisation [wikitruth.info]. I guess that serves me for browsing at -1.
Figures (Score:2)
Information Wants To Be Free (Score:2)
Why should I?? All the news I need/want I get for free elsewhere.
There's no value added in news stories to warrant my paying for them, as everyone is reporting the same news (most getting it from AP and Reuters). If I have to pay for news, I'd rather pay AP and Reuters directly than some middleman.
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Another aspect is advertising. Since - despite all appearances to the contrary - newspapers are still in business to make money, are they go
Re:Information Wants To Be Free (Score:5, Informative)
Gathering news at its source tends to be expensive. Gathering it from people willing to go into dangerous and/or inconvenient areas doubly so. Getting someone to gather the news then report it without some form of hidden agenda is rare even in the paid media, and in an ad-supported world there's the constant pressure to bias your news in favor of your benefactors - those who buy ads. So if MegaCorp's CEO is found buggering badgers in Soho, and MegaCorp's ad revenue is your bread and butter, there's a serious temptation to bury that story as deeply as possible, preferably somewhere that never hits print at all. If it is covered, it would be spun as hard and creatively as possible to cast badger buggering in the best possible light.
Ads can pay for some of it, but not nearly all. Newspapers that have their own news-gathering resources are finding that their articles are being reprinted on free media, and are forced in large part to put a lot of their content online for free and hope that ad revenues make up for some of that. Meanwhile, a lot of their loyal readers are discovering that a lot of the content they want is available for free, and are canceling their subscriptions for the dead tree editions.
Many local newspapers now survive on their remaining dead tree subscribers, and struggle to remain relevant in an online world where they can't make enough money to continue gathering news effectively. So a lot of them are dying off as a result, and the concept of "local news" in more rural areas is starting to fade slowly.
My home town still has a larger town next door that has a decent local paper. It's still got a small staff of newsgatherers, and has fresh and relevant local articles. But it's a shadow of the paper it used to be, and is under constant threat of closing down. Print subscriptions are continually dwindling, and that's their major source of income.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It'll be interesting to see how they respond (Score:4, Insightful)
The main word in that last sentence is "easily". As I see it, too many media outlets want an easy way to fill their content containers (e.g., print press, websites, TV newscasts) without encouraging the kind of in-depth coverage that was once the mainstay of reporting. We need more news hounds who will go beyond the breaking headlines, the quips from public officials, and what they can quickly Google on the topic to doing real investigative journalism.
Think of it in the context of the recent kidnap recovery in California. Did any member of the press break the story that the perp was groundskeeper next door, of a lot that overlooked his little prison camp? No. That information came out after the police investigated and made the discovery.
I'm not suggesting that journalists should interfere with police investigations, or that they should have beat the police to that bit of information, but I wonder how many newspeople actually were out there trying to conduct their own investigations of this perp, and how many were just trying to be the first back to the office (or studio) with the most recent quip from an official investigator or a family member. To me, it seems as if journalism has become more like the paparazzi--simply haning out and hoping they get the best shot, or that they are first to press with some juicy new tidbit.
Okay. Enough of my ranting and raving. The post was about Google promoting micropayments for news items served up through Google News. If they can make it work, it will be a good thing, but unless news outlets go back to some old-fashioned, pavement-pounding journalism, it will soon be like a respirator on a brain dead body. No matter how much air you pump into a dead thing, it is still dead.
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The media is very biased and pisses off a lot of center-right potential customers
I'm sure there are plenty of self-described centre-left potential customers who believe exactly the same thing about exactly the same media. I think the more informative view is that the media as a whole is a bunch of crap that either tritely reinforces your pre-existing biases or tritely contradicts them, the only distinction being which specific outlet is doing the reinforcement or contradiction.
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My guess is that it won't make a difference at many outlets like the NYT. It'll be a cold day in hell before they get actual conservatives and libertarians writing for them, do serious journalism again, etc.
Very true. The liberal NYT would never let a far-right conservative like Bill Kristol write for them.
The right price (Score:5, Insightful)
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But what is the cost that went into that article?
The individual-copy cost might APPROACH zero, but it never reaches it. However, the consumed costs for the vast majority of readers for the vast majority of articles is now zero.
And for smaller papers that cover more local-interest news, it's even worse because their costs are nowhere near zero, but the number of people willing to pay for it is dwindling, not increasing. So the cost-per-subscriber goes up, and at the same time a lot of their news is covered
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in depth newsgathering has been dead for 20 years
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I agree with you but we're confronted with this fact that people are not willing to pay for news. I understand the concern of everybody working in the news industry but they can't make a living out of something that has free competitors that people thinks are good enough. I'm thinking about blogs, search.twitter.com, youtube and even the TV. The news industry will get downsized. Some newspaper will survive (paper or web based) but a lot of people will have to find a new job.
The music and news industries as
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The catch is that bloggers and twitter scavenge quite a bit of their factual content from "professional" news sources. An additional problem with twitter (which I don't use) and TV are the problems with archiving content; its quite a bit easier to search for a text article than video (granted that some programs have
Google needs news sites to be profitable (Score:3, Interesting)
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Or Google starts there own news site.
Or new ones appear that embrace the new business models and shed the remnants of a model that's 100 years old.
I have a bad feeling about this (Score:2)
I really don't want news stories to be democratized. The people on the internet who are the loudest are also the craziest [xkcd.com], the most obsessed and probably the ones that are most likely to spend money to push their world view.
Who is more likely to fund a news story? An average reader or a crackpot who thinks that UFOs destroyed the Twin Towers?
Well, lets see how this pans out.
Disconnecting developing countries from the mesh (Score:2)
"Google must pay us!" with Google ads (Score:2)
This [news.com.au] is an impassioned plea on news.com.au for Google to give Murdoch money. It's one Murdoch paper reporting on something in another Murdoch paper. Note the Google ads.
Illustration: Rupert Murdoch saying "My preciousssssss" [today.com].
why do this? (Score:2)
Now make it worth paying for... (Score:2)
let? (Score:2)
" let Web surfers pay a small amount for individual news stories,"
You mean
" make Web surfers pay a small amount for individual news stories,"
Wrong (Score:2)
Google just came up with some ideas to make the NAA happy.
Google is just giving them some straws to grasp at.
Print is dead, and that will be good.
Remember, news site and news papers are just (Score:2)
aggregates of news.
Now every place has there own web site to publish news.
Everyone will be a news person.
Interesting concept (Score:2)
This an interesting idea and if anyone can pull it off at the moment it's Google, but Google will need to give a teaser to the reader to draw the reader into buying the article. A lot of times I'll read the headlines and blurbs (on the WSJ for example) just for the sake of knowing that an event happened. Then, if I'm interested, I'll go to a free source to fill in the details. By details I mean what the writer feels are the details of the story, which a lot of times they miss, gloss over, or provide in such
Re: (Score:2)
The idea (I'm guessing) is to make the whole deal easier and quicker. Right now you'll need to be signed up with every paper (or enter your credit card details for every article); with this Google thingie it might be enough to simply stay signed in to your Google account. Browse at Google News, see a paywalled article you're interested, click once or twice, paying a penny or ten, go on reading.
Not sure if I like the "Google knowing what articles I read and when I read them" aspect of this, but the "easy pay
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm presuming Google is proposing is the papers sign up for the service, that the user "pays" via a google account, and that google provide the smarts to say "OK newspaper, we've received a few micro payments for you, and when we've got a critical mass of a few thousand we'll put through
Re: (Score:2)
What have we to lose anyhow? If no form of micropayment makes it through, many newspaper may not survive that much longer.
Throw a working way of monetizing in the mix, not only might we get rid of useless reporting ("useless" as in "nobody will pay to read it") but strengthen interesting reporting. Less dependency on ads means less nonsense spread over 15 ad-riddled pages.
Then, there'll be the whole Analytics tie-in (it's Google, it'll be there). Popular topics and journalists can be identified and given mo
Re: (Score:2)
No way will they give up ad money. Newspapers started depending on advertising in the late 1700s. They have traditionally made virtually all their profits from ads.
The problem with micropayments is not a technical one. The problem is that users hate them and the websites that implement them (really any form of payment-for-content). I work for a newspaper (in the IT dept) and we had to drop the requirement for free registration because people would rather go elsewhere than even register for free. Ask them t
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that would be the advantage of the Google system. All of the 'work' would have been done for you. You just 'click here to access this via GoogleWorld(TM)(Patent Pending)(C)(UL Listed). You don't have to think, work or do anything else that would interrupt your brain flow.
I'd be leery about for just that reason - I don't really like having everything I do tracked by Googl
Re: (Score:2)
Well truth be told the idea from Google's perspective is to say to the newspaper industry, "See? We're your friend! You wouldn't sue a friend, would you??"