Indian Online Journalism

Money and Paywalls

Subhash — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:36:55 +0000

As 2011 winds down, paywalls seem to be going up. The Chicago Sun-Times in the US and Scotish papers the Herald and the Sunday Herald have decided to go the NYT way. The new year will certainly see more such attempts. I reckon Indian newspapers might be keenly observing how paywalls pan out of lesser publications than the NYT.

There is always the temptation to squeeze more money out of the print product by shoveling it online. Even attempts at repurposing news for the new medium might justify putting up paywalls.

The year ahead might also see the emergence of mobile versions of the site attracting more audience than primary websites. There’s scope there to make people pay for content.

Sources:
Herald titles to charge online readers
Sun-Times to start paywall on news web sites

People who looked at this item also looked at…

Related items

Subhash — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 07:17:44 +0000

People who looked at this item also looked at…

Related items

Subhash — Tue, 31 May 2011 11:53:47 +0000

People who looked at this item also looked at…

Typepad blocked: A bizarre move

Subhash — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:37:51 +0000

My ISP BSNL hasn’t blocked Typepad, yet. But Nikhil Pahwa and Shivam Vij (Crazy internet censorship time in India, again « Kafila) are reporting that the government has explicitly asked ISPs to block the blogging service. As Shivam observes, unlike earlier when one would just hit a 404 error (page not found), this time there is a notice that says the site’s blocked.
It seems like a very inopportune time for the government to be doing something as ridiculous as blocking a site. The beleaguered central government’s already bruised image isn’t going to get a facelift with this move. The Manmohan Singh government is now in the august company of some shaky sheikh’s?
Shivam raises some important concerns and demonstrates how inane such moves can be. That’s not to assume that such moves are the machinations of bumbling babus, but in fact a part of the DNA of the state to control: Here’s a Medianama post that bares it all How The Indian Government Plans To Regulate Online Content & Blogs. Would it be surprising that the citizens of this country are wary of moves like The National Identification of Authority of India Bill, 2010 (pdf)?
This isn’t just the Indian or Arab governments baring their fangs. About 60,000 Turkish blogger’s using blogspot don’t have access to their blogs, thanks to a court order. And let’s not even get started on the reaction to Wikileaks by the political elite in the U.S.

People who looked at this item also looked at…

Key points from Touch Press’ Gray

Subhash — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 07:39:08 +0000

These ingredients should probably be part of any web content team:
Wolfram Research co-founder Gray and his Touch Press may be future of e-books, publishing | ZDNet

Here are his three key ingredients next-gen interactive e-books:

* “You need an author that’s not a technical writer, but can tell a real story with depth and authority,” said Gray. “You would read this author even if the book wasn’t interactive. Traditional publishers understand this.” However, multimedia companies don’t.
* “You need real programmers,” said Gray. “You need people that turn hardware into magic.” Gray’s definition of programmers goes beyond “Flash hackers.” These programmers can use software to tell a story and give hardware purpose.
* And the final ingredient is “a television producer’s eye for moving visuals.” These producers deliver high quality video on budget and on schedule. “If this were TV you would watch it even if it weren’t in an interactive app,” said Gray.