News Ltd continues paid content push with new appointments
News Ltd today revealed a series of senior editorial appointments across its digital portfolio as the company continues its march towards paid-for online content.
The company’s group editorial director Campbell Reid said: “The calibre of the people we have appointed to these roles reflects the growing importance we are placing on digital journalism.”
The appointments are:
Peter Clark, currently online business manager for the Melbourne-based Herald & Weekly Times, becomes chief digital officer of HWT.
4/4
You have to wonder, don’t you?
sure do
I wonder did they all use to work at Fairfax?Same old Same old ideas.
I just can’t see how this is all going to work for them.
I do understand that they need to make money to pay for journalists and I think that, in principle, people should pay.
But it just escapes me how they are going to make people pay when there is so much for free.
I think that the root of the problems might be that the advertising models that are defacto on the we, the pay per click, are flawed. I know that I never click on anything but I do quite often note brands and might buy them when I am next in the market for whatever they are offering
A good example is when I recently purchased a car. In the preceding weeks I had seen a few ads for KIA across the web. I never clicked on any but when I did come to make the purchase, I googled Kia.
I would have not considered a Kia but the ads put the thought in my mind.
So, I ended up buying a KIA.
So, I think that the branding potential of the web is underplayed and the PPC model is fundementally flawed. It can not deliver the money that is needed.
So, I think that the whole ad industry needs to think through the models.
Jimi Bostock
PUSH Agency
Brisbane | Canberra | Sydney | Australia
pushagency.net
I interviewed Alan Kohler (Business Spectator / Eureka Report) in September 09 about similar things. One of the most relevant points would be him saying:
“What you can charge for is unique content, where there is a direct link between price and value – People uniquely value something that makes money for them and or helps them with their life.
The question is in the point of the spectrum between depth and quality;”
The whole interview is at http://www.bravocharlie.com.au/newsoctober.htm – some fascinating points on publishing 500 stories a day.
An aspect no-one has mentioned yet is functionality. Provide the user with ways to make their life easier.
Case in point: http://www.lottos.com.au is a subscription based competitions listings website. Members are provided with a way to tag the competitions as entered, follow up, not interested, prize won, awaiting prize. They can list the competitions in a myriad of ways, over 130 sort options and all those lists will show the competitions with the tags the member has used. Individual members can also make their own ‘private notes’ linked to each competition listing, a useful function for ‘compers’ as they can save their ‘words or less’ answers to competitions.
So a blend of data, information and application provision works.
Perhaps News will provide a way for subscribers to save/search news items by category etc so they can refer back to them in the future.