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November 16, 2007
Ads, Freebies, and Mobile Print
Rupert Murdoch, someone who knows a little bit about media, has said the online version of the Wall Street Journal will be free. Rup says they can make more money selling ads that reach an audience of 15-20 million freebie readers than the current model of 1 million paid subscribers.
Murdoch's announcement is "old beer" to the NY Times, according to press reports. The Times had tried to wall off their columnists in a subscription format, only to find out that their columnists were getting much less exposure and therefore lower ad clickthrough rates. Or something like that.
Exciting eh?
On the other hand, we're also starting to see a lot of non-traditional printed media migrate to the web. Marvel has opened up "Digital Comics Unlimited" up, so for $9.99 per month (and hey, I know people who used to *ahem* pay more than that for hardcopy back in the day), you get full access to thousands and thousands of classic and new titles... ahhh....
*ahem*
And if that wasn't enough fun for one day, on Monday Amazon will take its crack at the e-book reader market. Will people pay $399 for a single-function device to lug around to read both books and newspapers? Will it have a better showing than the Sony reader? Kindle will have WiFi and perhaps an option for Sprint EvDO service.
Now if I can only get rid of the Compaq laptop...
Posted by dmohney at November 16, 2007 01:36 PM