But it’s a minefield. Your wish reminds me of something a Sprint exec said to me, complaining about why content producers, such as of TV shows, felt they should make money off their shows the first time they’re shown, and then, again on all platforms. Why, he asked, should they charge a user to see a program on TV, then again on a cellphone.

Note that SOME porn sells. Other porn doesn’t.

> The corollary:
Special sites don’t need Google or aggregators. You want quality? Pay for it.

Umm, wrong. A corollary is something which follows readily from a previously proven statement. The notion that some porn sells doesn’t imply that porn sites don’t need Google or aggregators. Some may not, but some may.

The value of an aggregator or a search engine to a site is not determined by whether the site sells content.

The “You want quality? Pay for it.” is something of a non sequitur in this context. (It’s not necessarily true either. Why should one pay for quality that is available for free?)

I don’t know that he has, but that’s not particularly relevant. Assume, for the sake of argument, that few people will pay for certain kinds of content. The existence of such content doesn’t prove that Jarvis thinks that all content should be free or even that no one will pay for any content. (He clearly believes that some folks will pay for some of his content, even though he also seems to believe that few, if any, will pay for other bits of his content.)

I find the emphasis on Jarvis mostly irrelevant so let’s leave him out until the end of the argument.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that very few people will pay for certain kinds of content. Does it make biz sense for folks who produce that kind of content try to charge for it? Does the answer depend on why almost everyone won’t pay? If it doesn’t make biz sense, is there any reason to believe that charging for content that people won’t pay for will succeed? Does the answer to any of these questions depend on what kind of content we’re talking about? (For all of those, if so, how and why?)

If you want to argue that “enough” folks will pay for (some) newspaper content, great. Have at it. Let’s see the evidence. Better yet, let’s see the money.

Why does it matter what Jarvis says about any of this? Do you think that things will be different if he changes his tune?

- Newspapers creating books they could sell? Thomas Friedman has sold a few books. Should the Times be making money from that?
- Newspapers offering consulting or speaking?
- Newspapers enabling non-journalists?

Thanks.

What would they need to change to do that? Some thoughts:
- develop or encourage their writers to build strong relationships with their audience
- discuss the book-writing process in the course of their free news reporting
- have a mission that people felt compelled or enthusiastic to support
- NOT simply republish content from their newspaper: it would need to be original and suited to e-book format, whatever that is emerging to be

Incidentally, I assume that Jeff also charges for consulting and speaking engagements. Nothing wrong with that. Could newspapers do that too?

Lastly, to build on Dave Winer’s point, could newspapers enable people who aren’t professional journalists do these things too?

Actually Jarvis doesn’t advise people to make their content free. He advises them to not charge for content unless someone is likely to pay for said content. He points out that a lot of content is available for free so trying to charge for that content is likely to fail because consumers will go where they can get it for free.

If no one is likely to pay for your content, Jarvis’ advice is to give it away or to start producing content that someone will pay for. If you insist on ignoring the “or to start” alternative, his advice does look like give it away, but that’s because of the characteristics of your content. People who have content that someone is likely to pay for hear something entirely different.

Jarvis does live by the advice that he actually gives. He charges for content that people are likely to pay for and gives away content that they probably won’t pay for.

5 of them are from versions of the publisher’s site.

1 is from friendfeed

1 is from this interview from LT (where they seem pretty skeptical about your ideas):
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6631352.html?industryid=47354

I realize there are many other links to marketing “sound bites” littered all over the internet, but the fact that you’ve offered the book online for free is essentially a false statement. It’s also not search-able (google can’t get in there), and could very easily have been. (but I suspect your publisher didn’t really want to give the book away for free, as in “free”

So much for free…

The premise:
No content posted on the web is unique.
A web user can find multiple sources for any type of content.
Whenever content is available from multiple sources, at least one source will be free.
As soon as any type of content is free, no one can expect to charge a fee for providing the same service.

The porn objection:
Porn should be a prime example of the commodification of information.
There may be differences between porn site A and porn site B.
If so, they are subtle.
The repertory of porn is limited, involving a more or less fixed number of sexual acts. Nor are porn “stars” more attractive than many amateurs, whose performances are available for free.
In this case, no porn site should be able to charge.
Yet many sites are pay-for-play.
If porn can charge for its services, a journalism site, which offers thorough research, special insights and/or exceptional style, should have no problem selling its content.

The restated premise:
Although a lot of information on the web is a commodity and has little or no financial value, some users will pay for content, which they consider to have special value.

The corollary:
Special sites don’t need Google or aggregators. You want quality? Pay for it.

The book preaches salvation in an ideal world but even by your own admission the world’s not perfect.

Maybe its a follow up but contemplating how things could/should change without a more detailed analysis of the impact is only half the story. The easy half. The hard half is the part of how to make it work. Rarely do people ever have debates about where we are, may be more about where we want to go, but we almost never agree on how to get there. WWGD deals with where we want t go. Finding the bridge to get there is the challenge.

mike.

“I think, it is very logical to charge for a book because you put your time and effort to write it and you deserve some remuneration for it.”

I sighed deeply after that one, sensing all the angry reporters who apparently don’t put enough time and effort into their writing to deserve anyone paying to read it.

And then this: “The interesting question is not whether Jeff is a hypocrite, but rather whether or not he’s done the smart thing.”

See, I think that misses the ENTIRE point … which is that Jeff regularly and repeatedly advises others to make their content free. The point is he’s giving bad advice. And it’s advice he doesn’t live by.

The sad truth is that the old newsies we all so love to dismiss have a good point — which is that some types of content, even if it’s written by (God forbid) ink-stained reporters, is worth paying a subscription to read online.

Yep.

It’s an urban legend that only the likes of WSJ and other mythically talented folks can charge for content. It’s just not true.

You can charge. There are consequences for traffic. But you CAN charge. And you CAN run a business that way if you charge for SOME content, not all. The WSJ does this on a daily basis.

Don’t oversimplify their business strategy by dismissing it as just for elite news providers. Instead, ask yourself — what should you charge for and what shouldn’t you charge for?

The answer, as early commenters explained, is whatever you can get away with. That’s what Jeff’s doing, even if he won’t admit it.

If you ask yourself what Jeff would do, you’d charge for some content on your newspaper Web site. It would be the content that very few people are very interest in reading. In other words, it’s the content that creates the fewest advertising impressions.

but if you want to charge for an _e-book_, or an
iphone-app, you strain the bounds of credulity…
(you shouldn’t charge for them anyway, since they
are “marketing tools” for sales of the paper-book.)

but there’s no hypocrisy around charging money
for a paper-book. not if the price is “reasonable”.

> I wish a reader could acquire access to a book
> with one fee in all media – as a book, an e-book,
> an iPhone book – perhaps subscribe to updates.
> But the system isn’t set up for that – yet.

it’s easy enough to make that happen for your book.

(it’s easy to make it happen for _any_ book, actually,
so it’s just a scaling matter to do it for _all_ books.)

make your text available — the page-images are
already exposed on the web, by your publisher –
and i can set up everything for you this weekend…

-bowerbird

But there’s nothing inherently good or evil about either stance.

And so while we shouldn’t be snarking at Jeff for managing to make money off his content (good for him!), nor should we be snarking at news organizations that are trying to charge for content. They may be misguided, or fail, but they’re not necessarily lazy clueless whining curmudgeons who should be shot. Even if some of them are.

Whining about lost ad revenue, wishing for deep-pocketed philanthropists, or fantasizing about a cartel that requires payments to news organizations doesn’t help anyone. But neither does dismissing out of hand, as a number of posters do (not on this thread, but in general), any suggestion of charging or subscription fees. Let’s examine them all.

bob wyman

It is clearly the case that at least 99.9% of newspapers and other MSM should *NOT* try to charge for their online content. This isn’t a moral argument. Rather it is a statement that given low barriers to entry and tremendous competition in the space, it is a really stupid thing to do and will result in unnecessarily low revenues. For the .01% of newspapers, like the Wall Street Journal (to which I subscribe), the case is not quite so clear cut. But, they are such a tiny minority they can be usefully ignored.

The newspapers should be focused on trying to figure out how to make “free news” pay. The sooner they stop whining that life would be easier if they could charge, the sooner they’ll build businesses that are sustainable and profitable. The market is what it is — there is a greater demand for news then there ever has been before. There are vast quantities of money to be made in the “free news” business. Stop crying over spilt milk and start making money instead.

bob wyman

the new york times has a piece on 5 newspapers that will share content.

if that ain’t a commodity…