Hot New Local Media Trend: Stories About How Mayyybe Philly.com Might Start Charging For Content
You little buggers can’t keep it in your pants, can you? One after the other, stories are beginning to crop up whose headlines make it sound like Philly.com is gonna go paid-content any second now, but upon further inspection, reveal that the powers that be are merely thinking about it. Well, no shit, Sherlock. Last week, we told you that reps from Philadelphia Media Holdings were having a sorta-kinda secret meeting with lots of other newspaper publishers to consider the quickest way to make Joey Sweeney a millionaire strategies for introducing paid content to their audiences, a full decade after we thought we all agreed that this was the dumbest fucking idea in the universe. That must have whet the local media whistle pretty well, as first Technically Philly blared from the top of its bunker that this WILL happen, and Fox29 followed suit after it got locked into Tierney’s Blue Steel stare while he was mumbling/thinking out loud about the idea. But not so fast: The Technically Philly piece reveals that even though Tierney & Co. are trying the idea on for size in an obvious media-coverage-as-focus-group ploy, the fact is, Inquirer Executive Online Editor Chris Krewson is quoted point blank saying, “There won’t be a pay wall anytime soon. For various technical reasons, we actually couldn’t do that if we wanted to.” To which we say, yeah, guys. You might wanna take your time on that.
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
they can’t get RSS feeds right, how on earth are they going get a subscription service functioning? if they made the decision right now, it’d probably take a year for them to launch an unusable beta.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Also, pay-walls don’t work: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-read-the-wsj-for-free-online-2009-6
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 am
Didn’t you reference Philly.com recently for the story about The Bulletin? Doesn’t that break the boycott you have?
At any rate, charging for content is fine with me. If its gotten to the point where people are OK with paying for content again and its a viable model, then I think it would be a good way to find out just how viable it is down the line.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:02 am
If Philly.com wants to make money from it’s content, they should do what The New Yorker does, albeit the money made is the “old fashioned way.”
Just post excerpts of the majority of stories and only persons that have a home delivery subscription can access all content in an unlimited way.
Yes, I know, Inky/Inky Jr. (aka Daily News) are not the New Yorker but that’s a way that seems sorta “fair and honest” if you believe free content is theft.
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:36 am
I like the idea of posting excerpts on their site and paying for the rest, but “home delivery”? I doubt a lot of people would be willing to do that. Then again, how would that be different than a flat fee, anyway, right?
Cool concept, though!
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
re: Then again, how would that be different than a flat fee, anyway, right?
I generally purchase Inky/Inky Jr. daily so I might be tempted to purchase a home delivery subscription to have unlimited access to Philly.com. It would actually save me money.
I definitely would not pay a flat fee just for access to the website… I don’t consider “Attytood” a must online read.