How News Limited is reaching out to the bloggers in the paywall debate
The great thing about doing Mumbrella is that when I want to be a journalist, I’m a journalist. And when I want to be a blogger, I’m a blogger.
Last night I was at News Limited’s blogger briefing on its plans for The Australian’s paywall.
Of course, much of the information was put in the public domain by The Australian’s CEO Richard Freudenstein at Mumbrella360 back in June.
very smart strategy if it can work – taps into the blogger ego need to ‘have a perceived seat at the table’ which then may ensure buy in or at least lack of negative sentiment.
for the record i wouldn’t say mumbrella is any more a blog than the australian is. both break news, have influence and aren’t just op-ed. big difference between a mumbrella and the blogs mentioned above (which are ‘i think this therefore’ type outlets)
Glad you enjoyed the session Tim and found it useful.
Really enjoyed following the tweets last night, sounds very interesting and it looks like News are going about this in a way that commands (some) respect.
The fact that The Oz isn’t getting a kicking in this thread right now suggests that it’s working
Tim, I just want to double-check the point you make that “the first five items of content accessed via Google will be free each day”. So, does that mean that you get no items, or unlimited items, or somewhere inbetween if you use other search engines such as Bing or Ask. Or, have news done a deal with just Google?
Selling the strategy is one thing.
Whether subscribers will pay is another.
Hi John,
Good point. I should also have clarified that it’s five piece of premium content – so unlimited access remains to the stuff that’s not behind the pay wall.
The question didn’t come up at the briefing regarding other search engines, but it did regarding Facebook, which is one item. They were very honest that with some of this they are experimenting as they go, so I think that will include numbers of free premium items per day.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Tim I know it’s easy to be wise after the fact but it looks like you were perhaps misled into thinking that News is more social-media friendly than is the actual case.
Today The Australian gave some more details about the model:
http://www.theaustralian.com.a.....6170411734
“News indicated it would allow users to access up to five premium-content stories a day via Google and have one free click-through from social media site Facebook when the national broadsheet erected the paywall later this month.”
And it won’t give free clicks to Twitter.
There is nothing “blogger friendly” about that setup. The only option you have as a blogger is to a) tell people to google the story b) find another source and ignore News Limited.
I’ve published my thoughts on the evening, including tackling of the questions we all raised during the session.
http://www.digitaltip.com.au/i.....companies/
The Australian is free for three months to those of us who are willing to subscribe and try it out, its a shame they do not encourage comments at the end of their work product! I understand people who subscribe to have their news paper delivered receive internet access as part of that subscription. Consumers paying for things and services is after all how business stay in business. Edward James