Photo credit: Matt Law
Think bigger than micropayments
January 30, 2009 Tags: economy, funding, internet, Journalism, media, multimedia, News, payment
Category: Journalism, News 5 Comments 
Though media has many different channels, journalists are especially concerned with funding online news right now. I had a thought that stemmed from the micropayment theories floating around the web, and it incorporates necessary qualities that I talked about earlier (identifying the audience, establishing a relationship, and serving their needs).
We could create a platform that links all news sites that wish to participate, forming something like a “society” of newspapers. Net surfers would register with an email address, and the platform would provide a monthly allowance of free page views that could be used to visit any news sites that opt to be a part of the platform. If and when the allowance has been used, the net surfers who want to continue using the platform could purchase another web page allowance or they could purchase access to a specific news site directly through the site they want to use. The platform would direct payments back to the news sites on a per-click basis when additional page allowances are purchased and used.
Another alternative is a time-based allowance, but that would get annoying rather quickly.
For a plan like this to be successful, news organizations must target a specific audience and tailor the information provided to meet their needs and wants. The media that survive will be those that offer unique yet valuable information.
A plan like this would also promote an increase in multimedia production and availability by increasing competition among news companies participating in the “society.”
What do you think? Could a plan like this rescue the media?
EDIT: Based on some comments, I came up with a few more thoughts on a network of media sources.
1- Users could add and rank their favourite sources on a personalized home page for easy access and quick updates on top headlines.
2- The home page could offer several tabs: one listing the network-wide favourite sources, another listing the most read (or top rated?) articles in the last 24 hours, another with the most popular videos, a live feed of newest headlines, and so on.
3- All sources could be searched, and thus, categorized. This also leaves the option to allow users to link to their own stories (or videos!) so that they can be rated by the public.
Intriguing idea. Potential drawback, at least for me, is that the participants in the platform are decided by who wants to join, rather than who I (the user) would like to see there.
I like this idea because it’s fresh, and I’ve seen nothing like it before. We need to have this sort of dialogue to move online media into 2009 and beyond.
I think all it would really take is one major company, such as Gannett, implementing this to see if it would work. Others would follow if it does. By testing this out on a major company, you already have your “society” of papers all across the country.
Please email this idea to editors and publishers across the country; it is useful to the dialogue that must be taking place right now!
Something to ponder – and may or may not work within this model – but if a ‘subscriber’ was willing to provide accurate and honest demographic information there would be an added value in served advertising.
Example: advertiser targeting specific affluent female on West coast, or those in specific industry, or even those assumed to be able to influence friends.
Sarah:
See: http://newshare.com/ivp/about.pdf
http://newshare.com/ivp/valet.pdf
The Information Valet Service will do what you suggest. I’d love to discuss it with you and encourage you to help us with the design.
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Bill Densmore, 2008-2009 Fellow
Reynolds Journalism Institute
201 RJI Hall
University of Missouri
Columbia MO 65211
573-882-9812 / VOICE MAIL/CELL: 617-448-6600
densmorew@rjionline.org
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Adapting Journalism to the New News Ecology:
Finding new roles in the civic sphere
A Poynter-Journalism That Matters convening
March 1-4, 2009; REGISTER: http://www.newsecology.org
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VOTE for a new National Writers Project — for journalism
http://tinyurl.com/9r4tr8
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Get involved in Blueprinting the Information Valet Economy …
Read and watch proceedings:
SUMMIT HOMEPAGE: http://www.ivpblueprint.org
WHO PARTICIPATED: http://tinyurl.com/62yazu
TWO-PAGE BACKGROUND: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/ivp/about.pdf
RSS FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/infovalet
GOOGLE GROUP NEWS: http://groups.google.com/group/infovalet
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REBOOTING THE NEWS: A civic-education agenda
http://www.rebootingthenews.org
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A question that begs to be raised is how will said costumer pay for his paper? With a credit card? Using a credit card online when you don’t have to is simply absurd. There are now safer methods to make online transactions such as OneTouch Purchasing. Companies like OneTouch fill the need for safe and secure online transactions and prevent credit card fraud on the internet.
(This comment was edited to remove possibly harmful link.)