There is a conventional wisdom in the media industry that micropayments for online content don’t work, but Greg Golebiewski of Znak It says that this isn’t true, and that media companies need to experiment with the model. Read more at paidContent »
It’s a risky bet, but the new owners of the Orange County Register — two entrepreneurs with no background in traditional media — are pouring money and resources into the newspaper, and not just online but in print as well. Read more at paidContent »
The Daily Mail, the world’s sixth largest news site, says it is not only growing digital revenue faster than most other papers, but has engagement levels that put it above Yahoo and even YouTube. Read more at paidContent »
New owner Jay Penske is shutting down Variety magazine’s daily print edition and removing the paywall around the century-old tabloid’s online content. But will these radical moves help the paper survive against more nimble rivals? Read more at paidContent »
Hundreds of traditional publishers have erected paywalls around their content, but there is much to be gained by focusing monetization on individuals rather than an entire newspaper. Here are a few suggestions on how publishers could do this. Read more at paidContent »
With Netflix on a roll, its big European rival — Amazon-owned Lovefilm — seems more and more desperate to staunch the flow of subscribers quitting the service and moving elsewhere. Read more »
Paywalls are being erected at hundreds of newspapers around the world, but Guardian Media CEO Andrew Miller says his newspaper is still opposed to a subscription wall because it wants to expand its readership as much as possible. Read more at paidContent »
A comment about a Bloomberg story on the New York Times paywall started a debate about the positive and negative effects of paywalls that included some media industry luminaries such as the former CEO of Dow Jones and the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Read more »
Orange has reportedly asked banks to find a US investor for Dailymotion, as the French video site embarks on a subscription video by embracing the growing paid kids’ content trend. Read more at paidContent »
Critics of the Washington Post say that the only approach that will solve the newspaper’s financial problems is to put up a paywall around their content like everyone else — but while that might buy time, it’s not a long-term strategy for new-media success. Read more »
Should content owners sell through a subscription or on a piece-by-piece basis? That depends on the country they will be selling to, according to data that shows wildly varying patterns. Read more at paidContent »
A start-up is trying to bring Next Issue Media-style magazine subscriptions to European iPads. But Le Kiosk is taking on €5.6 million in funding to improve its underlying tech with social features and more. Read more at paidContent »
The Financial Times’ digital subscriber sign-up continues apace, as the paper finds more money and more readers in paid digital content whilst the advertising market looks weak. Read more at paidContent »
Any subscription music service from Apple could fundamentally alter the entertainment business. But it may come only when iTunes’ current gas runs out, and we’re not quite there yet. Read more at paidContent »
Carrier bundling will help grow music subscription income by 46 percent a year, one analyst forecasts. Spotify continues on that road by allying with Deutsche Telekom in Germany. Read more at paidContent »
As more newspapers roll out metered paywalls and subscription plans, trying to duplicate the success of the New York Times, some journalists hope that being funded by readers will help stop the ad-driven pageview race and save quality journalism. But this argument is fundamentally flawed. Read more »
Only a sliver of people who have tried out The Guardian’s iPad edition for free end up subscribing after their trial. But does that small percentage matter? Other publishers also see low premium take-up, The Guardian is more interested in selling ads than subs. Read more at paidContent »
One company is about to find out how web apps compete with native iOS App Store offerings in a very direct sense. The Financial Times is out of the App Store, and now depends on an HTML5 tablet-optimized site alone for presence on Apple devices. Read more »
Apple has plans for putting iTunes in the cloud, but a subscription service that provides users access to its entire content library is not among them, according to a new report. Instead, Apple wants to make your existing collection available to any of your devices. Read more »
The iPad seems well-designed for magazines, but Apple has had trouble working out a subscription model with publishers that works for all concerned. Might Jeff Bezos have stolen away the revenue potential represented by periodicals with Amazon’s latest move? Read more »
Spotify is a huge hit in Europe, where it provides ad-supported, free streaming music via desktop application. It’s attracted roughly seven million users there, and is now in the process of trying to extend that success to U.S. shores. Apple isn’t on board with the plan. Read more »
Apple wants a cut of any profits made using its App Store for iOS devices, which is why it takes 30 percent of revenue from purchases made through iTunes accounts. Now, Jobs and co. hope to extend that model to newspaper subscriptions, too. Read more »
If you’re a devoted print subscriber but you have an iPad and want to read the digital edition instead, the only option to date has been paying full newsstand cover prices all over again for the same content. That’s now changed for the better. Read more »
The TV-on-the-web service, Hulu, is now offering a free iPhone & iPad app for Hulu Plus, its recently launched subscription service (currently in private beta). Though the service itself is in private beta, the iPhone/iPad app is available right now for download. Read more »
Especially in this troubled economy, many small businesses and freelancers try to supplement their work with recurring revenue opportunities. This regularly billed income can help to ease the cash flow problems that are common with freelance work. Read more »
Fox Mobile is hoping it can convince consumers to shell out to watch TV on their smartphones. The News Corp. subsidiary this morning unveiled Bitbop, a subscription service for smartphone owners that will deliver both streaming and downloadable movies and TV programs to smartphone users. The […] Read more »
If you can get past the salty language, David “Master of 500 Hats” McClure has a good point to make about how the future of web services is likely subscription and transaction-based, and the fact that this model favors Facebook, Google and Apple. Read more »
Big change in TV distribution is in the wind, if the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Apple’s “all you can eat” iTunes television plan is true. According to the WSJ, CBS and Disney are considering allowing their entire television lineup to be sold on a single-fee, […] Read more »
Big Cable has just been given a lot more to worry about in a landscape that is already rapidly changing under its feet. All Things D is saying that Apple has been shopping around a subscription-based model for video content to TV networks recently, and it […] Read more »
Mary Jo Foley reports on her ZDnet blog that Microsoft is seriously considering making Zune services, such as the subscription-based Zune Pass, available to other platforms — and that includes Apple’s very own Mac OS X. It’s early days though, as Foley admits, “There’s no guarantee […] Read more »
