Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands • Hacker News Board

"Until now, it was not possible for Dutch consumers to search for premium content from newspapers and magazines. Blendle is the first paid search engine for newspapers and magazines in the country." https://medium.com/changing-journalism/a2031594e430

Re: Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands

#6

Post by michh » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

fireworks10 wrote: post #3

Seems expensive, $0.10 to read an article?

For the average article in a newspaper: yes. But that includes a lot of the stuff already out there for free. It'd be silly to pay even a cent for a copy-pasted press release or a 100-word article reporting on how firemen rescued a kitty from a tree the other day.

For stuff like in-depth analysis and backgrounds, imo the only area in which newspapers still add value nowadays, I think $0.10 is perfectly reasonable.

Re: Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands

#7

Post by danso » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:19 PM UTC

Hopes this succeeds...my impression of the news business is that journalists have vastly underestimated the importance of delivery system. Newspapers had success in the pre-Internet days, not just because of good journalism, but of good delivery systems. There's a reason why afternoon newspapers died as television became popular (back in 1948, there were 1,453 afternoon papers versus 328 newspapers: http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/02/rip-pm-newspapers.html)...it's not that people are just attracted to stellar journalism, but the newspaper is expected to provide a useful, reliable service (such as classifieds). Too many journalists thought that people paid to subscribe because they, deep inside, cared about the First Amendment and freedom of the press. Yes, some subscribers do. I pay for the New York Times and the New Yorker because I want to support them, but there's not enough people like me around.

And truth be told, the New Yorker's digital service is a pain in the ass. For awhile, their user-management system was horrible (find your print magazine, enter your name in exactly as it appears on the label) and the web-viewer is trash, and to read it on iPad meant downloading hundreds of megabytes per issue. I only use the digital service because it comes free with the print subscription and would never subscribe to digital alone. Reducing friction has been a huge factor to online subscription services in general and the news industry has been far behind on it...hopefully the Netherlands project makes up for that.

But even with a good subscription service, I wonder if it's too little too late? People are now way in the habit of not paying for news. And unlike Netflix movies or Spotify tracks, the average person doesn't get addicted to morning news clips. Reading news is more work than pleasure, and that's always why newspapers, back in the old days, were very careful about how they did comics, sports, and other non-news sections.

Re: Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands

#8

Post by Thomvis » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #7

Hopes this succeeds...my impression of the news business is that journalists have vastly underestimated the importance of delivery system. Newspapers had success in the pre-Internet days, not just because of good journalism, but of good delivery systems. There's a reason why afternoon newspapers died as television became popular (back in 1948, there were 1,453 afternoon papers versus 328 newspapers: http://newsosaur.…

I think Blendle is doing a great job regarding reducing friction. I signed up and read my first article through the service yesterday within one minute after somebody in my Twitter feed shared it. The per-article fee is subtracted from my account as I read, but I can ask money back if I didn't like the article.

Re: Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands

#9

Post by raimue » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

fireworks10 wrote: post #3

Seems expensive, $0.10 to read an article?

When you buy a newspaper, you expect to get a lot of information from the whole thing. However, you do not distribute the money to single articles you actually read. After reading, you will feel informed anyway.

The advantage of a full newspaper is that you can start reading and then stop again once you realize the content is not interesting to you or you don't need any more details. Just taking a glance is often enough.

However, spending money on a single article on this service when you only want to take a glance? I would ponder bit, but I would be less likely to hesitate spending the money on it due to their refund policy.

Re: Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands

#10

Post by Raykin » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:46 PM UTC

Myjour (https://myjour.com) is providing kind of same services with a different angle. The article is the main subject, instead of newspaper or magazine. Individual articles can be bought from newspapers, magazines, authors as well as several international publishers.