Comments on: Is Subscription the Next Thing?

By: ID:entity

ID:entity — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 21:04:51 +0000

For those who are interested in this specific topic a very goog blog can be found here: http://www.paidcontent.org/

By: Chris Zaharias

Chris Zaharias — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 06:23:33 +0000

Folks should take a look at keepmedia.com; they are building an interesting business around aggregating [I think] magazine content that sure makes sense to me.

By: Micah Alpern

Micah Alpern — Fri, 16 Jul 2004 14:20:13 +0000

Isn’t this the buisness model over at http://www.northernlight.com/?

By: gary

gary — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 01:09:09 +0000

I've mentioned several times that many libraries in the US, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere OFFER FREE remote access (no need to visit the library) to thousands of publications. All you need is a library card.

As an example, the Marin County Public Library in California offers a database called ProQuest Newsstand. It offers FREE full text access to 600 newspapers. All searchable from home. They also offer MANY other excellent and expensive resources for free.
http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/lb/main/databases.cfm

By: Matt McAlister

Matt McAlister — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 23:40:31 +0000

John – you’ve uncovered the model publishers have been struggling with since Google introduced advertising and became a competitor. Well stated. By running ads against a publisher’s content, Google has taken advantage of the free nature of online media at the expense of the publisher. They are encouraging media companies to embrace registration and in some cases even blocking Google’s access to content. But I’m sure publishers will gladly pay bounties to Google or any other search engine that drives subscriptions or registrations. It’s probably too much to ask to get Google to share ad revenue back to the publishers too

By: MikeM

MikeM — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 22:27:00 +0000

Forward thinking as usual JB.
However, you probably cut yourself out of 50k in consulting fees for that pen stroke. When they adopt this plan you will never get the credit.

MikeM

By: Kendall Willets

Kendall Willets — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 20:50:36 +0000

Findarticles always seemed to have the right bizmodel to me: publishers turn over their archives in return for some of the ad revenue from the search.

By: mike

mike — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:54:07 +0000

This is AOL’s current model and has been for about 10 years… aggregate content from around the web and distribute it to its 20+ million subscribers…with AOL’s advertising pasted around the content. Brilliant, eh?

By: Alex Moskalyuk

Alex Moskalyuk — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 17:05:56 +0000

Do you think there's some conflict of interest between the paper publishers and Google/Yahoo? Essentially the newspaper publishers are in the business of selling ads, and so are the search engines. They do it differently, but it's possible that they are fighting for the same customer.

I believe there was a story not so long ago on ZDNet about the computer magazine publishers losing ad placements to Google. The AdWords model and Overture listings attract hardware and software sellers, who can target a very niche market, since most of the computer guys out there are on the Internet anyway. With paper ads you have measurement problem and cost issue (i.e. PC Magazine probably wont talk to you on your $50 budget).

At some point, I think, The Times will view Google as the competitor, when, for example, their major ad buyers cut their Times budgets in favor of AdWords/Overture.