Newspaper "Paywalls" Is it Jack be nimble Jack be quick Jack jump over

The Paywall

Newspapers are struggling and scrambling to recoup lost revenue's from decrease in physical paper subscribers to the free online consumption of their news.

Solution is the "Paywall"  (Paywall meaning that you have to pay to get over the wall to see whats on the other side.) And the drive in the industry is to attempt to get other news papers to add their bricks to the wall.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumps over, around or jumps off, The Paywall,
A visual point to the issue, see Jack & the wall (newswallers),

Example from Newsday.com home page:

Those who are not customers of Optimum Online or the newspaper - both owned by Bethpage-based Cablevision Systems Corp. - will have to pay a $5 weekly fee. However, nonpaying customers will have access to some of newsday.com's information, including the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classified and entertainment listings. There also will be some limited access to Newsday stories.

Newsday self coins it as "pioneering Web model"  Yea right, a horse and wagon trip to grandma's I say.

"We are excited about this model because in addition to a unique ability to immediately reach about 75 percent of Long Island households, we believe the hyper-local approach is right for Long Island," said Debby Krenek, Newsday managing editor and senior vice president/digital.

The wall model solution shows why they are struggling to push their revenues over the wall of info seekers and creating friction with the people whom their trying to attract let alone creating bad press for themselves.

So Join the Wall If Your Goal Is To:

• Turn away potential new readers- stagnate
  
• Decrease the viral, buzz and spread-ability of their news -  become a island
  
• Less exposure for their advertisers as their page views plummet. Page-views and exposure is what create value for the advertisers. So decrease your views, decrease your value. Loss in ad revenue.
• Lose talent to open news innovators which help to build their talent recognition & increase income.
  

Jack Be Nimbles (non"paywall" joiners)- Opportunity is knocking

• Get ready for increased traffic from a open format due to the void created by "paywall" papers

• Innovate with revenue models - create a collaboration with other open see's -
  • Idea: set a one price to see all in news network subscription - keep price point  reasonable think volume (network revenue share)

  • Idea: pay to feed streams to feed into news or topic sites (network revenue share & individual paper revenue) Meaning, if I run a Green
    Gardening Site, I could subscribe to all green gardening articles across the news network (one feed),But, I run a local geographic based business I could subscribe to the local papers business feed only - non network shared revenue

  • Idea: create a membership option to allow localized citizen journalists or businesses to blog off network (think dynamic ad pages) + this could help create loyalty and vested interest, paper or network.

  • Idea: hire talent away from the "Pioneers" in their horse & wagon- it takes them to long to get anywhere - Position Sell: Journalists would have option to write for the network meaning that their article would be spread across the network, more exposure & name recognition and because the increase in paper revenue they get higher pay + a residual on their feed subscriptions. (like music or actors do)
    

So in the end it will be interesting to watch the fallout, see the innovation and possibly a change in which we all consume news.

What will Jack see when he jumps over the wall? 

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