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Tag: paywalls

  • Google Talks AMP and Paywalls

    Google Talks AMP and Paywalls

    Very soon, Google will begin sending search traffic to Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). This will begin on an unspecified date later this month.

    To get webmasters and publishers prepared, they’ve been posting about how AMP’s relationship to various website elements will be carried out. They’ve discussed ads and analytics. Now, they’re talking about paywalls and subscriptions.

    “One of the great challenges to designing a paywall solution is the wide range of strategies that publishers employ to control access to their content,” says Ashwin Limaye, Product Manager for Accelerated Mobile Pages. “There are different identity and authentication systems and many approaches to user management and access control. In addition there are a host of different payment options, subscription product offerings, single sign-on solutions, geo restrictions, etc. With AMP, pages need to be able to load on any domain (e.g. a publisher.com AMP page can load on google.com) in a secure manner while preserving user privacy. The lack of commonality in how various publishers achieve these objectives today meant that it was very hard to build a unified system within AMP for addressing all of these needs.”

    They’ve been working with publishers and have devised a set of principles to guide a solution. It includes special AMP markup for paywalled and subscription content that indicates sections that are visible to different types of users.

    “When the AMP document loads, the AMP Runtime asks the Publisher for instructions on how to show the document, which the publisher typically bases on the user type,” explains Limaye. “The AMP Runtime puts together the publisher instructions with the document markup to show the user exactly what the publisher intended. For instance, this could mean showing full content to a subscriber, a metering message to an anonymous user, or a snippet followed by a subscription upsell message to a user who has exhausted their metered quota. In cases where the document asks the user to log in or sign up, the user is taken to the publisher’s website to complete this process. This keeps the publisher in control of its users’ data and any related financial transactions.”

    The solution can be found in the documentation and examples on Github.

    Check out the guiding principles as well as more comments from Google and from publishers here.

    Google his hosting a series of hangouts discussing various aspects of AMP throughout the coming weeks.

    Image via AMP

  • The Washington Post Plans to Go Behind a Paywall This Summer

    Today, The Washington Post announced that they will be the latest publication to put some content behind a paywall.

    The move will take place some time this summer, and the Post is still in the process of determining exactly how much to charge readers. The paywall will pop up after readers access more than 20 articles a month.

    According to a post in (yes) The Washington Post, there are a few groups who will be exempt from having to pay to view articles. This includes home-delivery subscribers as well as student, teachers, government employees, and military personnel who access the Post’s website while at school/work.

    The Post’s homepage, as well as all section front pages and all classified ads will not be hidden behind the paywall.

    “News consumers are savvy; they understand the high cost of a top-quality news gathering operation and the importance of maintaining the kind of in-depth reporting for which The Post is known,” Katharine Weymouth, publisher of The Post, said in a statement. “Our digital package is a valuable one, and we are going to ask our readers to pay for it and help support our news gathering as they have done for many years with the print edition.”

    According to The Washington Post, the company will also release and new iPad app alongside the paywall, which they hope will attract more subscribers.

    The Washington Post joins a handful of major media outlets to go the paywall route, including the The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. Although WaPo doesn’t have the national distribution of the NYT or the WSJ, 90% of their online audience comes from outside the Washington area.

  • New York Times Lets Starbucks Customers Inside the Paywall

    In what sounds like a completely sensible partnership, The New York Times has announced that readers will have free access to content that’s normally behind the paywall, as long as they’re reading it at Starbucks.

    Starbucks customers who are logged in to the Starbucks Digital Network can now access up to 15 articles per day.

    It’s a bit more complicated than that, however. Customers are forced into three articles per day from each of these four categories: Top News, Business, Technology and Most E-Mailed. The final three articles per day comes from a rotating section that changes every day:

    Sports (Monday); Science (Tuesday); Dining (Wednesday); Styles (Thursday); Weekend (Friday); The Magazine (Saturday); and Sunday Review (Sunday)

    Anyone can log into the Starbucks Digital Network via Starbucks’ free Wi-Fi. But the NYT access is only applicable to U.S. stores that offer AT&T Wi-Fi.

    Starbucks first launched SDN back in 2010, and has continued to add content to it every year. Starbucks Digital Network features content from ESPN, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, USA Today, and Yahoo.

    “Starbucks is the ideal setting for The Times to offer enhanced digital access,” said Yasmin Namini, senior vice president, marketing and circulation, The New York Times. “Customers on SDN will discover a diverse selection of Times content updated in real-time, from the day’s top stories to more in-depth features and opinion.”

    So, next time you’re grabbing a caramel macchiato, you can catch up on what the New York Times has to offer – for free.

  • Hurricane Sandy Prompts Paywall Takedowns at The New York Times, Wall Street Journal

    As “Frankenstorm” Hurricane Sandy bears down on the east coast, a few online news sources have decided to make their content freely available to everyone with an internet connection. That means tearing down those paywalls

    The New York Times is making all of its content free for the duration of the storm. A spokesperson had this to say to Poynter:

    “The gateway has been removed from the entire site and all apps. The plan is to keep it that way until the weather emergency is over.”

    So there you go. For the time being, you will no longer be cut off after reading 10 articles on the site. All Hurricane Sandy news (and any other news on the site) is free for all. This isn’t the first time that the Times has made this move. They did the same thing for Hurricane Irene last year.

    The NYT isn’t the only publication suspending paywalls for the storm. Wall Street Journal digital editor Raju Narisetti tweeted the news that his publication would also be stripping the paywalls starting Monday, October 29th:

    We can debate the effectiveness of the paywall strategy until we’re blue in the face – but this week is not the time. When an unprecedented storm threatens millions of citizens, it’s simply a nice and patriotic move to make information accessible to the broadest swath of people. Be safe, everyone.

  • Vimeo Launches Tip Jar, Paid Videos Coming Soon

    For the most part, Vimeo provides an ad-free video viewing experience. One of their only sources of revenue comes in the form of selling pro services to both users and creators (Vimeo Plus and Vimeo PRO). In order to help video creators receive quick and easy funding for their content, Vimeo has just announced a new Creator Services platform.

    “Today, we’re taking one of the most important steps in our evolution as a service, a company, and a community. We’re proud to introduce Vimeo Creator Services, our new suite of simple, powerful tools to help creators make more money for doing what they do best: entertaining us, engaging us, baffling and outright dazzling us with amazing work,” said Vimeo’s Blake Whitman.

    The first product on the Creator Services platform is Tip Jar, which allows viewers to make contributions to video makers to the tune of $1-500. If a video maker has activated Tip Jar for their videos, users will see a “Tip the video” button right below the video player.

    Vimeo Tip Jar

    And Tip Jar is only the beginning of the monetization options coming to Vimeo. Coming next year is a new Pay-to-view service which will allow video makers to charge viewers to watch their content.

    “In the coming months, we are incredibly excited to introduce our first pay-to-view service, giving video creators of all types flexible tools to charge for access to your videos, with no coding required. We’re not saying too much at the moment, but we can promise you’re going to like it,” says Vimeo.

    Of course, Tip Jar isn’t designed to only help video creators. Vimeo will take a 15% cut on all tips made on the site.

  • Warren Buffett Declares Free News Unsustainable

    When Warren Buffett speaks, Wall Street listens. The 81-year-old Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has used his keen business sense to become one of the richest men in the world. So, when Warren Buffett says that free news is bad business, publications around the world might want to take a second look at their business models.

    Buffett’s proclamation came in a letter he wrote to employees of newspapers that Berkshire Hathaway recently acquired. Bloomberg quotes the letter in their report:

    “This is an unsustainable model and certain of our papers are already making progress in moving to something that makes more sense,” Buffett wrote in a letter to editors and publishers of Berkshire’s daily newspapers. “We want your best thinking as we work out the blend of digital and print that will attract both the audience and the revenue we need.”

    According to Bloomberg , Buffett wants to buy more newspapers and will shift their focus to more local, community-oriented news. This may be newspapers’ last great hope, as digital news companies that have tried to orient toward community news, such as AOL’s Patch, have not seen success. Niche news is certainly the best bet for a pay-for-news service, and The Wall Street Journal’s paywall has made money due to that publication’s first and last-word status within the business community.

    Now, Buffett has a higher business acumen than almost any person alive, so questioning his views on that subject is not usually good for an investor. However, it is possible that his age has kept him slightly out of touch with developing technologies, much the same way news mogul Rupert Murdoch has struggled on the web. The fact is, every Twitter user is potentially a journalist. Every blog author is a publisher. The ability of the internet to disseminate information instantly means news will spread without news organizations. Whether or not Buffett knows it, news organizations will have to acknowledge the power of the free flow of information on the web. With publishing essentially free, that means news will be free, whether sustainable business models can be built around it or not. Though some hybrid paywall schemes, such as The New York Times’, have see limited success, the face remains: news is free now.

    (via Bloomberg)

  • Do Paywalls Scare Off Media Professionals?

    Do Paywalls Scare Off Media Professionals?

    Paywalls seem to be straightforward: users pay to gain access to content. What could be simpler? The internet, however, with its ability to infinitely copy and immediately disseminate information, quickly makes whatever lurks behind paywalls worthless. The only paywalls that have worked are those catering to niche industries or groups of people (such as financial investors) who require instant access to breaking stories in their industry.

    eMarketer, a website specializing in digital intelligence reports, has just released a review of an April 2012 DigiCareers study in which U.S. digital medial professionals were polled about their feelings toward paywalls. Though a majority of them do not abide paywalls, there is evidence to suggest that attitudes toward the content-locking shcemes are becoming more accepting.

    After encountering a paywall, 52% of digital media professionals immediately leave the site. 42% stick around to weigh whether the pricing is fair. Oddly, 4% of respondents “applaud the site for their business acumen.”

    As for what respondents are willing to pay for, Hollywood might be winning its public relations battle in that area. While only 8% said they had paid for radio, 47% paid for movies and 35% paid for music. Of course, these percentages are still a minority, suggesting that a simple paywall scheme for entertainment content may not be the best model.

    90% of survey respondents expect a “freemium” model where at least some content is free before hitting a paywall, and 63% expect no ads once they pay. Almost as many, 61%, are willing to see ads behind a paywall, as long as it lowers the paywall toll price. In what might be the most interesting news from the survey, only one-quarter of respondents said they had a negative perception of sites that use paywalls.

    With so much free content available online these days, what could possibly get viewers to pay for content? The answer isn’t surprising. eMarketer cites an Accenture study that shows over one-third of viewers are willing to pay more for content that is either higher-quality or has reduced advertising attached to it. Viewers will gladly pay for new, high-quality content; they just don’t want to feel cheated. If content creators offer their products in an easy, straightforward manner, in quality as good as that available through piracy, viewers will buy it.

    (via eMarketer)

  • CBS Will Charge Fans For March Madness Online Access

    CBS Will Charge Fans For March Madness Online Access

    March Madness is looming o’er the heads of college basketball fans so it’s time to begin strategerizing how to watch as much of the NCAA tournament as possible. At least in the beginning of the Madness, many games will be played and broadcast at the same time, creating a conflict of interest when it comes to picking a game. In previous years, savvy basketball fans have multi-tasked games by watching one on the television and another game online since streaming games was freely available on CBS’s website.

    While ideal, such a tactic might come with a little price tag this year as CBS has decided to make a little extra money off of people who enjoy watching sports. In order to stream games live on CBS, ball fans will have to cough up $3.99 in order to gain online access.

    How this paywall will affect different games and different devices is a bit murky. People who already subscribe to cable will need to verify their subscription through CBS’s website if they want to watch a game that’s airing on TNT, TBS, and TruTV. However, if a game is airing live on CBS, then no passwords will be required to watch the game online on CBS’s website. Lastly, if you don’t subscribe to cable yet you want to catch some of those other games that aren’t airing live on CBS’s website, that’s when you’ll have to pay up the $3.99.

    If you have plans to watch any of these games online via mobile device, you’re out of luck because you’ll have to pay the fee outright.

    Variety points out that this isn’t the first time CBS has tried to rake in some extra money from March Madness. From 2003 to 2006, CBS charged $15 for fans to get online access to games. So what’s total access to NCAA Tournament coverage worth to you? Any of you okay with paying a few extra dollars in order to gain access to all the games you would otherwise miss? Let your voice be heard in the comments below.

  • New York Times-Owned Paper Puts Paywall Around Online Content

    Telegram.com, the website for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette in Massachusetts, which is owned by the New York Times Company, has now put up a paywall. On Telegram.com, users are granted with a message, which reads:

    Telegram.com now asks visitors who are non-subscribers to register or pay to view local news articles. Subscribers to the print edition of the Telegram & Gazette have unlimited access to our website as part of their current subscriptions and simply need to register. Non-subscribers may register to view 10 locally produced articles in a calendar month, purchase a day pass for unlimited access for 24 hours or subscribe.

    Telegram.com Gets a PaywallEven the search function on the site has a paywall. Users can search the past 30 days for free, but are charged for searching through content dating back to 1989. Search results display the headline and a summary for each story, and while the search is free, the cost of viewing the full text is $1.95 per article.

    The cost for an online subscription is $14.95 per month. The daypass is a dollar for a day or 5 dollars for 5 days or 10 dollars for 10 days.

    Readers won’t have to pay to comment on an article, but they’ll have to pay to view them (as part of the subscription or pass). The comments are considered part of the article.

    It will be quite interesting to see how this paywall turns out for the publication, and whether it has any influence over the NYT Company’s decision to erect paywalls around more of its publications.

    (HT: SAI)

  • New York Times Paywall Loophole – Access Through Links

    Back in January, the New York Times announced that it would be gravitating to a metered paywall system at the beginning of 2011. This would let readers access an as-of-yet unspecified number of articles for free each month, until requiring payment for further access. Meanwhile, print subscribers would have full access to content online.

    The publication said the move would create a second revenue stream and preserve its ad business. "It will also provide the necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web," it said.

    There has been a great deal of speculation around what this would mean for bloggers, who frequently link to the New York Times. The publication is clearly not anti-blogger or anti-link, because they are now saying they’ll not even include referrals from blog links in a reader’s limited free access. A spokesperson for the NYT tells Peter Kafka of MediaMemo, "The pay model will be designed so readers that are referred from third party sites such as blogs will be able to access that content without hitting their limit, enabling NYTimes.com to continue being a part of the open web."

    NYTimes.com

    That’s good news for bloggers who rely heavily on the New York Times as a source, because nobody wants to point readers to a link in which they are prompted to subscribe for access (though it certainly does occur from time to time, and is perhaps unavoidable in some cases). It’s also probably in the New York Times’ best interest, because the casual reader arriving from a blog link is much more likely to simply backtrack than actually subscribe.

    The NYT says it hasn’t set the limit number for free access yet, but the paywall isn’t supposed to go up until January, so there is plenty of time to work that out. The limit is not something they’re going to want to launch without some careful consideration, though they can always change it depending on its success/failure.

    By the way, a recent study found that the New York Times is one of the top four sites most often linked to by bloggers.

    Would you pay for unlimited access to New York Times online content? Even if the most popular articles are linked to from blogs, from which you can gain free access? Tell us what you think.