jp10558Premium
join:2005-06-24
Willseyville, NY | reply to Z80A
Re: Note to Murdoch and others looking to do this same thing Well, yes and no. I mean, look at bottled water for the canonical example. There are certainly information sources I'm willing to pay for. Consumer Reports being one example. The WSJ being another example given in this thread.
What do they have in common? They both appeal to a niche, they have information gathered in one place thats difficult or impossible to find elsewhere and their information is usually "good". There's a lot to be said for that, and it can be worth money.
The problem with generic news outlets is that they're often a commodity. So they don't provide anything you can't get anywhere/everywhere for free or really cheap (think cost of power for your PC or radio or TV). USA Today, the local paper, and the BBC often have the same story basically pasted from an AP or Reuters blurb. Resellers often don't make that much money...
It's often repeated, but the smaller papers might get subscribers for good and comprehensive *local* news. For instance, there was a fight at the local bar last night, and someone got run over... Gossip causes some interest, but no one knows what happened. It never makes any news, though I don't know if that's lack of interest for local papers (who want to cover Obama or Wall street - please, I'll get that from CNN/NYT/googlenews...) or legal issues or what.
Heck, how about news about the new construction down on main street - what's going in next to K-Mart? Who got paid what for it? Are we giving them a tax break? Is the community going to get decent tax revenues from it? How many jobs are expected to be created?
But these just don't get reported that often. And podunk paper can't compete with the New York Times or CNN, and they're not doing that well themselves...
Tangent over. So, to get people to pay, I think they have to have something unique, and something of value. Most of it can't be cookie cutter anymore. There's probably room for one more Consumer Reports competitor for instance.
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