According to a current study, we’re not overly impressed with Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for use of his on line news websites. Of 2,000 people today asked if they would ever pay for on the internet news, 9 out of 10 said ‘No!’. Does that mean that Murdoch’s selection to charge users to access his news web pages is foolish?

I wouldn’t pay for news, either, unless…

If I were asked ‘would you ever spend for on the web news?’, I would probably say ‘no’, as well. Just after all, in an age when we can typically study about major events on Twitter before any of the news channels report them, why would we ever want pay for access to their content?

Even so, I would, and generally do, spend for high quality and ‘luxury’ news. World News would never ever pay a penny for one particular of the shrinking number of no cost newspapers handed out on my way to operate in a morning, but I would pay for a Sunday broadsheet with all its extras and trimmings (even even though the chances of me actually reading more than a few pages are extremely modest).

I have also been known to sign up to a paid members’ area on the website of a particular football team (which shall remain nameless) to acquire access to further content not out there on the most important website: video interviews and press conferences, highlights of reserve and youth group matches, live radio commentary on match days.

Would I spend to read The Sun on line? No. There are generally only about two paragraphs in each image-dominated short article anyway. It only costs a couple of pennies to purchase the actual point so there wouldn’t be significantly value in using its web-site. The Occasions? Maybe, but only if all other excellent news outlets starting charging, otherwise I’d just go for the no cost 1.

Utilizing a Credit Card for a 20p Short article?

I’m not confident how significantly Mr Murdoch wants to charge his customers to read an post, but I’m guessing there is going to be some sort of account that requires setting up. I undoubtedly could not be bothered to get my wallet out every single time I wanted to read anything and I would be extremely hesitant to commit to subscribing.

On the other hand, if they had a comparable program to iTunes, whereby you just enter your password to get access to a paid report and your card is billed accordingly, that may well make a bit a lot more sense. But, if I had to do that for just about every main news provider, it would turn out to be pretty tiresome.

Eventually, they could be shooting themselves in the foot to some extent. If the internet site tends to make it harder and much less convenient for me to read an post, I’ll likely go elsewhere. I would assume that I would normally be able to study the news for no cost on the BBC’s web page, which would not be good news for the advertising income of the Murdoch on the net empire.

Copycats

Assuming that I actually wanted to study an short article on a paid web-site so badly that I handed over my credit card particulars to them, what would quit me ‘reporting’ on what the write-up said on my freely offered weblog? I would visualize it would be incredibly hard for a newspaper group to protect against thousands of bloggers disseminating the information freely to their customers who would achieve lots of site visitors in the procedure.

Recipe for Results?

The achievement or failure of paid news is in the approach used to charge and engage with customers, assuming that the users value the content highly sufficient to deem it worth paying for. The jury is surely still out on the whole concept and the chances are that a lot of will try and fail just before a lucrative system is created. Till then, we’ll have to wait and see.