Many people are anticipating the coming announcements from Apple next week. Much of that anticipation is concentrated on the rumored introduction of an iSlate, tablet. Some have mentioned that there is also a likelihood that Apple will introduce a new pricing structure which would include subscription (this by way of @dboyll).
Perhaps due to the surge of interest for all things media relating to Haiti in recent days there have been renewed rumblings about making some newsworthy information worth something to the consumer, literally. Here are some excerpts from the article:
2010, by some accounts, may be the year in which this type of content will be placed behind pay walls, repeating an attempt from several years ago to charge for news content.
Perez notes that the subscription model works well for Murdoch's Journal, which makes its op-ed content available for free, but charges for longer news and analysis pieces. Yet the question remains whether a regular newspaper could charge for standard news fare. (BTW, Murdoch also owns Hulu...)
One uncertainty in all of this, especially if the Times chooses to go with a metered system, is whether video content will command a higher price than print content. This concern is followed closely by the question of what makes up a news story: the video itself or a combination of a text article and the supplementary video clips.
"Of course, it is the established media, with their legacy of high operating costs and outdated technology, that face this problem," Perez-Pena noted in his blog post, citing the Huffington Post as one example of a "leaner, newer online competitors [which] will continue to be free, avidly picking up the users lost by sites that begin to charge."
Eventually the web will need to pay for itself if we want to continue to receive high quality content with the click of a button.
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