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Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#81

Post by pavlov »

jjcm wrote: post #76
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Here's the approach I've been working on: -Pay $~4/mo -Every upvote you give during that month (not just views, since I think views encourage clickbait) gives an equal slice of that $4 pie. -At the end of the month, a flat $1 goes to pay for server costs, then the rest is distributed evenly between every upvote. You can see a mini-demo here: http://syd.jjcm.org/soci/ The nice part of it is it ranks by quality while d…

That's basically what Medium is doing now, right?

They offer $5/month subscriptions, and the money from subscribers is distributed among those writers who published members-only content based on the amount of "claps" (likes) each subscriber gave.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#82

Post by 15charlimit »

Cue massive drops in traffic (again) and news orgs whining about it (again) and blaming the next boogeyman, whatever that is. Probably something something "piracy" etc.

Paying/subscribing for general-purpose news is old news. It had its time, and that time is over. Much like music industry CD sales with the real rise of p2p, news orgs will have to figure out what their "ipod" equivalent is going to be.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#83

Post by bluetwo »

ripdog wrote: post #43
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Micropayments for most major US news outlets already exists - check out Blendle.com. It's in closed beta right now, but works great, and invites are easy to come by. It does require you to read articles on its own website and not the original publisher's, but it's a nice clean layout. You own (a license for) articles once you pay for them. There's also fast, automated refunds if you don't like an article.

I've been using them for a couple months and like the service. They send a daily email with a summary of the news and links and I have found they do a good job of curating news.

Only gripe would be the price per article, which I assume they negotiate with each publisher, since it varies widely. As more people us e it I would hope this comes down a bit.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

jellicle wrote: post #40
NeutronBoy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article The other side of the coin is that if you're a news organisation, "the economics just don't work" with micro payments. You can't fund a month long investigative report based on micropayments, even if it produces a prize-winning piece, if you don't have guaranteed income to support it. What happens if you spend the month in…

That ship sailed a long time ago. The current status quo IS micro-payment per article, only it comes from advertisers instead of readers.

Thats actually why subscriptions as a more significant revenue source are important: because of what the pay-per-view model does (whether it's advertisers or individuals please paying.)

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#85

Post by bluetwo »

Like others I think a well done micro-pavement or bundle of payments would be nice.

One thing I think that is missing from the discussion is metrics. If you do a nice job building the site, and let users give an indication whether they want to see more or less coverage on the topic, you can offer this metrics data back to the news outlets, which can give them far better direction than simply looking at website clicks (which encourages click-bait). This, along with a slice of micro-payments would be valuable to them.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#87

Post by jawns »

satya71 wrote: post #80
jawns wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking about how to help my beloved news industry find a payment model that works. I've become convinced that a "cable subscription" model has more promise than a micropayments model. Here's what's wrong with a micropayments model. Each microtransaction is an addition…

I fear that payments based on total number of access or usage would still encourage pandering to the base instincts as with advertising supported model. Payments need to be based on quality of work. The system should ensure that Alex Jones doesn't make much and ProPublica does well.

Bear in mind that under the hood, how revenues are distributed in a "cable subscription" model can be as simple or as complex as you want.

For instance, let's say you get 10 major publishers on board, and each of them has 25 regional properties. So that's subscriptions to 250 news sites total.

Maybe a third of the total revenue gets split evenly among those 10 publishers, and another third gets split based on page views / engagement. Then one-sixth gets distributed based on Pulitzers or other quality-type metrics, and one-six gets distributed based on number of new subscribers brought in by the publisher.

Then the publisher can decide how it wants to allocate that revenue. It might employ a similar system to decide how to distribute it to each of its properties. Then the editor can employ a similar system to decide how to allocate the budget to clickbait vs. substantive reporting.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#88

Post by dragonwriter »

sgk284 wrote: post #52
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

Unfortunately, micropayments encourage click-bait and pop-news (but that's not to say that advertising doesn't either). We've also have seen other failure modes with payment-per-article in academic journals, though payment is much larger there, so may not be a fair comparison. In general a la carte payments usually lead to overall higher costs (e.g. Classic Blockbuster vs. Netflix). My ideal system would be a Spotify…

With modern web payment models and analytics, advertising is basically third-party micropayments, so it has all the adverse impacts of micropayments plus all the adverse impacts of the bill being paid by third parties whose interests are different from and often adverse to the news consumer.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

sp332 wrote: post #69
infinityplus1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't they pay after reading the article and decide if it's worth it?

That's what I was thinking. And if not, they'll have to convince people like any other kind of media: reviews, previews, or even refunds.

Headlines are previews, and clickbait is just making the preview oversell the content, and is the natural result of pay-per-view micropayments, which a what web advertising is.

Re: Google Unveils Tools to Increase Subscriptions for Publishers

#90

Post by codazoda »

jawns wrote: post #67
mindcrime wrote: post #28

Subscriptions are just the wrong model for news publishers. There's NO way I could possibly afford to subscribe to every news output I occasionally read news from, unless the subscriptions were so close to free as to be useless as a revenue source for the publisher. It's just not going to happen. What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. I'd be happy to pay you a f…

> What we desperately need is a real, useful micro-payments model where you can pay per-article. Former news editor here. I have spent a loooong time thinking about how to help my beloved news industry find a payment model that works. I've become convinced that a "cable subscription" model has more promise than a micropayments model. Here's what's wrong with a micropayments model. Each microtransaction is an addition…

How about time based micro payments? If I only read the first paragraph or two, I only pay a few cents. If I continue reading, I pay more. Articles, then, would have to be written to pull the reader into the piece and keep her there.

Just a thought I've had. Not sure how well it would work in practice.

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