NMA Cover Story: Publishers forced to revisit pay barriers

Last article this week about pay walls in a row of four this week. New Media Age cover page is completely dedicated to this subject as publishers are being forced to examine online subscription models to offset flagging ad revenues. The moves come as the industry looks for new potential channels as the print business continue to suffer… read article (for paying subscribers only…)

Newspapers need to embrace new technologies says Google CEO

MediaWeek’s article ‘Online advertising still king for newspapers – Google CEO’ provides more answers to newspaper companies looking for more profitable business models.

Schmidt says micro payments and subscriptions will happen as more papers talk charging for content. He also assured that advertising is still king on the internet, and subscription-based models or micropayment schemes can only account for a small amount of revenue.

However, he said these models were on their way. “I think you’re going to end up with all three,” he said. At least at Mobiya we have the answer to micro-bill for classified content.

Also interesting was the end remark of Eric Schmidt: “The environment remain ad-funded because subscriptions and micro payment models work on scarcity. Adding the internet distribution model  doesn’t work on scarcity, it works on ubiquity.”

How does that relate to Classifieds? Well, the long tail of an old and outdated inventory of classified is free and is ubiquitously  available (who would bother paying to respond to something which is already sold), but adding to that the scarcity of fresh, newly posted and pre-distributed classifieds can be made scarce and profitable.

Mobiya is best positioned to monetize the scarcity as we manage the life-cycle of the classifieds and prioritize or even vary the micro payment scheme depending on the quality, duration and category of the adverts.

Newspapers about content scraping and pay walls

Newspaper companies looking for digital revenues are pro-actively researching innovative ways to introduce pay walls and block access to information without having received payments from users. In parallel, newspapers also start taking very defensive positions when it concerns content scrapers taking excepts and large chunks of content in return for traffic, links or revenue.

The 'fair use' legal doctrine is no longer accepted and newspaper companies want to take their own destination back in their hands (see article AP declares war over misuse of content online). As the newspaper industry finally starts to understand the digital world, the excerpt and link model is no longer widely accepted (see article Content scraping bloggers in the firing line).

This all goes back to the issue of making money as a media owner and publisher. Publishers are being forced to examine online subscription models to offset flagging ad revenues (NMA). Even Rupert Murdoch now said papers must charge for online content (see NMA).

It'll be interesting to see how newspaper companies with big bank accounts and hardly any debt, but under serious pressure of a declining advertising market will consolidate the digital content market.

I am sure that not 'News' but 'Classifieds' content will be the first market that will be consolidated. I would even say the newspaper companies themselves will lead the market consolidation: having the cash available, and lacking the debt.

With regards to Mobiya, newspapers companies can start with the introduction of Pay Walls for Classifieds over Mobiya's unique micro-billing platform that connects buyers and sellers over SMS, furthermore Mobiya can digitally protect the classified content by masking contact information via Mobiya's patent pending algorithm, and last but not least Mobiya helps to maximise the distribution of the classified content, giving it away for free making money over direct response pay walls, rather than going into legal battles to claim your right to take the content back from third parties!

That simple, but effective!

Online ads closing in on newspaper ads

According to Silicon Alley Insider, NAA and IAB, newspaper advertising keeps sliding, and online advertising keeps growing. How long until the 15-year old upstart online industry overtakes the 200-year old newspaper business? Looks like another 2-3 years. Source: click here.