Media Money
- Facebook's Biggest-Ever Holiday Shopping Season
- Facebook's New Dual Class Structure - Slow Steps to an IPO
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- Twilight, Inc., A Worldwide Craze
- Oprah to Leave Syndication in 2011
- Sony's E-Reader Shortage and the Digital Book Battle
- Salesforce.com Brings Facebook and Twitter's Social Capabilities to Businesses
- Sumner Redstone's Companies Face Off Yet Again
- Can YouTube Revolutionize Citizen Journalism?
- What MGM's Sale Could Say About Value of Content
RSS FEED
MOST SHARED
- The Executive Job Search
- S&P Stocks Trading at New 52-Week Highs
- Where Do Pardoned Turkeys Go?
- Judge Erases Couple's $525,000 Mortgage Payment
- Activision Prepares to Double Dip on ‘Modern Warfare 2’
- Salvation Army's Kettles Now Credit Card-Ready
- US Plans to Reduce Emissions By 17% Within Next Ten Years
- US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
- Trader Talk
- New-Home Sales Jump 6.2% To Highest Level in Over Year
- 4 Thanksgiving Week Buys For Your Portfolio: Market Pros
- There's a 'Great Chance' For a Double-Dip Recession: Strategist
- Revenge of the Gangsta Nerds
- Will TCU See The "Flutie Effect?"
- Retail Earnings and Sales to Improve in Q4: Analyst
- Consumers Catching the Holiday Spirit
- It's Beginning To Look A Lot More Riskless
- Crescenzi: Claims Level Suggests End to Job Losses
- Hedge Funds Take Early Lead in Warren Buffett's 'Big Bet'
- AIG, Ex-CEO Greenberg Reach Pact to Settle Disputes
- Bank of America CEO Search May Extend Into 2010
- Steepest Black Friday Discounts, Revealed
- 'Cancer of Fraud' Permeates Health Care System: Critics
- US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
- Judge Erases Couple's $525,000 Mortgage Payment
- For Many in US, It Will Be a Scaled-Down Holiday Season
- Where Do Pardoned Turkeys Go?
- Jobless Claims Below 500,000, Durable Orders Slip
Text Size 
Correspondent
 |
Valerie Everett Newspapers |
] just announced plans to slash between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs, mostly from its local papers. The money-losing Boston Globe, which is owned by the New York Times [NYT
Loading...
()
], today announced "Globe Reader" a new digital version of the newspaper. It's formatted to look like the print edition and can be read online or offline. For now it won't cost extra, but the preview edition will be available only to Globe subscribers. Will it keep subscribers or add new ones? We'll see. The New York Times also announced that it will expand its digital content service, allowing other newspapers to post and update content even if it hasn't been published first in a print edition. The Times ended its "Times Select" subscriptions a few years ago and now it wants to make sure its generating as much revenue from digital rights as possible. The Times' main revenue source, advertising, continues to be weak. It seems the Gray Lady would be wise to experiment with online subscriptions to compensate for the fact that when it comes to ads, digital dimes are replacing analog dollars.
The Wall Street Journal [NWS
Loading...
()
] is the poster child for a successful subscription model online, and CEO Rupert Murdoch has said that the company plans to charge for its mobile applications, in time. So now it's trying to figure out whether readers will really pay. The WSJ.com is surveying iPhone [AAPL
Loading...
()
] users about whether or not they'll be willing to pay. Based on the wording of the question -- "If full access to Mobile Reader required a paid subscription, how likely would you be to subscribe?" -- it seems it's considering offering some mobile content for free, with the full library of content available only through a premium subscription.
The Journal has a lot working in its favor with this venture. By polling its target audience, who are already users of its product, it can figure out exactly the best way to generate incremental revenue from its mobile apps. Is it by including a charge in a higher online subscription fee? A separate mobile charge? Per article? Also, Apple's recent iPhone software update enables the journal (and other app-providers) to easily charge a subscription fee, rather than just charge to download the application. For the sake of the journalism business I hope other newspapers are looking at the potential to charge for mobile content. If people are hooked, and the application really works, people might just pay.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes