Apparently, the New York Times is poised to take the plunge and introduce a pay-as-you go system for its content. It’s a bold move given that few consumers are willing to pay for content based on a survey done last year.
While there are critics who don’t believe newspapers will be successful in selling content, my take is that if anyone is going to be successful, it’s the New York Times.
Why?
Perhaps the biggest reason is the NYT isn’t offering a commodity product that can be accessed in a variety of other places. The NYT produces high-quality journalism that ranks among the best in the world so, in theory, it’s content with value in the same way people pay for the Wall Street Journal.
Fundamentally, any attempt to convince consumers to pay for content starts with great content. But this is just the start as newspapers going this route also need to offer convenience such as offering access to content via smartphones, tablet computer or e-reader. The easier you make it to read content, the more value it will have, especially among mobile consumers used to paying for content.
From a high-level perspective, the NYT’s decision could have major ramifications by encouraging other newspapers to also charge for content. If this happens and it becomes more difficult to get free content, there’s a chance that paying for content becomes more widespread. If that happens, then perhaps the consumer mindset of getting online newspaper content for free could erode.
2 Comments
The transition to pay is fraught with problems.
Conversion being just the first – It's not just pay but how difficult/easy is sign-up and how secure etc. Design choices alone could be the difference between success and failure.
Then there's pricing – for a world wide market. What suits a mass US audience is out of reach except for the rich in other countries. And for sites like NYT who also want to benefit from it's high number of unique visitors that will be a balance – especially as the number of sites or outlets that offer a mass audience is diminishing so that value will rise.
This is a noble experiment – an having paid users insulates you from the well known censorship that groups have tried on TV shows – by forcing advertisers to pull ads from specific shows – generally because of content.
But I'm still not sure that content and good writing alone are enough. I think that they have to think about the totality of their offering and partition it so that paid users get something more than content – even vast amounts of it.
Earlier access is one dimension where pay has value – especially for commentary and investigative work. Graphic analysis is another (NYT diagrams are typically very insightful) . Ability to extract specific comments might be another – or identify theme's easily is another – because this is a form of surveying.
To implement pay you have to think beyond the content and think about how it is used, can be used and who values it. Partitioning and repackaging will be the name of the game.
It's a difficult dilemma that more and more content producers will face.
The transition to pay is fraught with problems.
Conversion being just the first – It's not just pay but how difficult/easy is sign-up and how secure etc. Design choices alone could be the difference between success and failure.
Then there's pricing – for a world wide market. What suits a mass US audience is out of reach except for the rich in other countries. And for sites like NYT who also want to benefit from it's high number of unique visitors that will be a balance – especially as the number of sites or outlets that offer a mass audience is diminishing so that value will rise.
This is a noble experiment – an having paid users insulates you from the well known censorship that groups have tried on TV shows – by forcing advertisers to pull ads from specific shows – generally because of content.
But I'm still not sure that content and good writing alone are enough. I think that they have to think about the totality of their offering and partition it so that paid users get something more than content – even vast amounts of it.
Earlier access is one dimension where pay has value – especially for commentary and investigative work. Graphic analysis is another (NYT diagrams are typically very insightful) . Ability to extract specific comments might be another – or identify theme's easily is another – because this is a form of surveying.
To implement pay you have to think beyond the content and think about how it is used, can be used and who values it. Partitioning and repackaging will be the name of the game.
It's a difficult dilemma that more and more content producers will face.
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