You don't give away things that have a marginal cost to give away. You give away the stuff that doesn't have a marginal cost to give away.
Marginal needs to include all costs. If a publication only has to export a print production piece to the web and no other cost, then sure, per se, why not try that experiment in a limited fashion.
Problem is giving away content online for many is a cost center --- significant additional cost.
Thinking eyeballs = viewers = revenue isn't going to cut it dollar wise compared to traditional publishing.
Oh come on. You know damn well that newspaper subscriptions are even more rife with fraud, number inflation and scams. Page views are much easier to audit and confirm.
Print subscriptions are actually audited and certified. While there might be some distortion, it's nowhere near what 75% of all websites misreport as their traffic. As bad as traditional media is, I can guarantee numbers nationwide without much effort or trickery. With the web, well good luck, in theory the numbers should be easier to gauge, but nearly everyone fails to standardize and audit, so it's the wild west of fraud.
Click fraud for online advertisements 'officially' as of last quarter was something like 30%. That's 1/3 of spend rate down the toilet per se.
I think paywalls are monumentally stupid from a business perspective.
Hey, we're all entitled to opinions and I value your opinion even if mine differs.
I see no reason why a newspaper or traditional media should bow to new media distribution models and destroy their brand. Giving some free content away can be lead generation certainly, but giving it all away is simply a very bad idea.
When paywalls go up people starting howling at the moon. I think the limits with many of the paywalls is more than generous, yet many continue to bemoan this reality and hack the system to extract more free content. It's shameful that we have such a prevalent culture of content pirates.
Bullshit. TV and radio have shown that it's incredibly sustainable. And so have plenty of free newspapers
TV and radio give their content away for free, but guess what most of it is purchased from third party producers. Even say the local talk radio show, while free to listen isn't free volunteer labor of love for the hosts, the stations pay them a living wage or better. Their ad rates are rather high and typically very worth it. Not like your are going to get bogus ad clicks from a radio campaign. Your ad either brings people in or it doesn't. It's fairly easy to optimize and the ads are in the geographically correct market targeting the intended demographic. Good luck with that on the web, it can be done, but it's a splattered mess all over and ROI is really sketchy still. Hard to convey many messages in limited form factors and in 140 characters of web ads - like AdWords.
With all you have provided, the only viable model you have inferred is for traditional media to perhaps upcharge their print advertisers to advertise on the electronic version or go after the online only dollars to subsidize their web content. If they go at it dumping all print content online, inevitably subscriptions dry up and people expect everything for free. That drives down the print ad dollars. No way today that online dollars will come anywhere near print ad dollars. Actually, online ad dollars for next decade will continue to be coins on dollar comparatively.
A publication can run their business into the ground trying this, many have. What do they get for providing all for free? A winning ticket in the online popularity contest?
For the record, I am a content producer and have my roots in owning a print publication and I've worked in the advertising industry. This isn't my first square dance.
Giving something away like McDonald's is a promotion. It has severe limits, duration, dollar value, consumption, etc.
What I meant by using them is show me how any traditional real product business can exist by "giving away their 'product' for free". I meant permanently giving everything (the Google model) not free as in a promotional.
McDonald's does not nor will it ever give away anything for free - only will in limited form to promote one off freebies out of their advertising budget.
By all means, if you can figure out how Porsche can give away free automobiles, every one they make and still have a business, well sign me up at the start of the line for that handout.
As for publishing, the only thing that matters with traditional print is paid subscriptions. It's what gets audited and what contributes most to advertising rates.
That same gauge or indicator should apply online as well. Who really cares if a site has a gazillion page requests a month by 10 billion 'viewers'. That model is ripe with fraud, numbers inflation, scams and many other issues. If you haven't provided a way to tie the real users in and can't gauge more traditional signals and data (geographic, postal code, gender, age and income) then your viewers go from value to in my opinion costing you money.
Shame that the anti-paywall folks are mostly the same people who support piracy, love Google enabling such and generally are consumers, not producers of content.
Amazing how much traffic breaking this paywall and getting around it have generated on Twitter and elsewhere. At some point it goes from game playing mischief to criminal theft.
Free is not sustainable at scale and for long duration. It's a scam of extremes like $2 million for a 30 second commercial is on television.
Even if these numbers are true, they are fine, not stellar, but sustainable.
A sub 1% conversion rate to paid subscribers isn't unique. It's rather typical web bulk business as usual. What's the typical Google Adsense or AdWords click rate? It's lingering in the same neighborhood and that's a much easier action to get someone to take --- getting them to buy is much harder.
If the Times went from 21 million viewers a month to 3 million viewers then good for them. Roughly an 86% loss of people. Along with the comes a reduction in servers, bandwidth, IT resources, headaches with 24/7 operation reduced, all sorts of stuff. Probably cuts down on the comments they need to moderate also.
Most businesses operate on a 90/10 rule. Like, 90% of my income comes from 10% of my audience.
Dropping the other 90% of freeloading web visitors should be a step more established brands take. Destroying your brand and giving your content away for free like it has been for over a decade strong has to stop. Web viewers can't expect quality content unless there are quality folks with the time and resources to produce such. The legions of bloggers aren't going to replace traditional media, they have their place though.
Last time I checked I can't find any company in any other industry than media giving their hard work away for free in hopes of somehow later recouping something. If McDonald's did this they'd be out of business, if Porsche did this, gone in one quarter.
So, why do we expect a free newspaper when you can't get a free lunch anywhere?
As for the economics of search and related traffic. It's very lucrative. One industry insider has said up to $50 CPMs, far above those nice to to see $3 CPM lowly bloggers might hope for.
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Re: Re: Paid subscriptions are really the only thing that matters...
Marginal needs to include all costs. If a publication only has to export a print production piece to the web and no other cost, then sure, per se, why not try that experiment in a limited fashion.
Problem is giving away content online for many is a cost center --- significant additional cost.
Thinking eyeballs = viewers = revenue isn't going to cut it dollar wise compared to traditional publishing.
Oh come on. You know damn well that newspaper subscriptions are even more rife with fraud, number inflation and scams. Page views are much easier to audit and confirm.
Print subscriptions are actually audited and certified. While there might be some distortion, it's nowhere near what 75% of all websites misreport as their traffic. As bad as traditional media is, I can guarantee numbers nationwide without much effort or trickery. With the web, well good luck, in theory the numbers should be easier to gauge, but nearly everyone fails to standardize and audit, so it's the wild west of fraud.
Click fraud for online advertisements 'officially' as of last quarter was something like 30%. That's 1/3 of spend rate down the toilet per se.
I think paywalls are monumentally stupid from a business perspective.
Hey, we're all entitled to opinions and I value your opinion even if mine differs.
I see no reason why a newspaper or traditional media should bow to new media distribution models and destroy their brand. Giving some free content away can be lead generation certainly, but giving it all away is simply a very bad idea.
When paywalls go up people starting howling at the moon. I think the limits with many of the paywalls is more than generous, yet many continue to bemoan this reality and hack the system to extract more free content. It's shameful that we have such a prevalent culture of content pirates.
Bullshit. TV and radio have shown that it's incredibly sustainable. And so have plenty of free newspapers
TV and radio give their content away for free, but guess what most of it is purchased from third party producers. Even say the local talk radio show, while free to listen isn't free volunteer labor of love for the hosts, the stations pay them a living wage or better. Their ad rates are rather high and typically very worth it. Not like your are going to get bogus ad clicks from a radio campaign. Your ad either brings people in or it doesn't. It's fairly easy to optimize and the ads are in the geographically correct market targeting the intended demographic. Good luck with that on the web, it can be done, but it's a splattered mess all over and ROI is really sketchy still. Hard to convey many messages in limited form factors and in 140 characters of web ads - like AdWords.
With all you have provided, the only viable model you have inferred is for traditional media to perhaps upcharge their print advertisers to advertise on the electronic version or go after the online only dollars to subsidize their web content. If they go at it dumping all print content online, inevitably subscriptions dry up and people expect everything for free. That drives down the print ad dollars. No way today that online dollars will come anywhere near print ad dollars. Actually, online ad dollars for next decade will continue to be coins on dollar comparatively.
A publication can run their business into the ground trying this, many have. What do they get for providing all for free? A winning ticket in the online popularity contest?
For the record, I am a content producer and have my roots in owning a print publication and I've worked in the advertising industry. This isn't my first square dance.
Paid subscriptions are really the only thing that matters...
What I meant by using them is show me how any traditional real product business can exist by "giving away their 'product' for free". I meant permanently giving everything (the Google model) not free as in a promotional.
McDonald's does not nor will it ever give away anything for free - only will in limited form to promote one off freebies out of their advertising budget.
By all means, if you can figure out how Porsche can give away free automobiles, every one they make and still have a business, well sign me up at the start of the line for that handout.
As for publishing, the only thing that matters with traditional print is paid subscriptions. It's what gets audited and what contributes most to advertising rates.
That same gauge or indicator should apply online as well. Who really cares if a site has a gazillion page requests a month by 10 billion 'viewers'. That model is ripe with fraud, numbers inflation, scams and many other issues. If you haven't provided a way to tie the real users in and can't gauge more traditional signals and data (geographic, postal code, gender, age and income) then your viewers go from value to in my opinion costing you money.
Shame that the anti-paywall folks are mostly the same people who support piracy, love Google enabling such and generally are consumers, not producers of content.
Amazing how much traffic breaking this paywall and getting around it have generated on Twitter and elsewhere. At some point it goes from game playing mischief to criminal theft.
Free is not sustainable at scale and for long duration. It's a scam of extremes like $2 million for a 30 second commercial is on television.
Under 1% conversion rate, that's fine
A sub 1% conversion rate to paid subscribers isn't unique. It's rather typical web bulk business as usual. What's the typical Google Adsense or AdWords click rate? It's lingering in the same neighborhood and that's a much easier action to get someone to take --- getting them to buy is much harder.
If the Times went from 21 million viewers a month to 3 million viewers then good for them. Roughly an 86% loss of people. Along with the comes a reduction in servers, bandwidth, IT resources, headaches with 24/7 operation reduced, all sorts of stuff. Probably cuts down on the comments they need to moderate also.
Most businesses operate on a 90/10 rule. Like, 90% of my income comes from 10% of my audience.
Dropping the other 90% of freeloading web visitors should be a step more established brands take. Destroying your brand and giving your content away for free like it has been for over a decade strong has to stop. Web viewers can't expect quality content unless there are quality folks with the time and resources to produce such. The legions of bloggers aren't going to replace traditional media, they have their place though.
Last time I checked I can't find any company in any other industry than media giving their hard work away for free in hopes of somehow later recouping something. If McDonald's did this they'd be out of business, if Porsche did this, gone in one quarter.
So, why do we expect a free newspaper when you can't get a free lunch anywhere?
As for the economics of search and related traffic. It's very lucrative. One industry insider has said up to $50 CPMs, far above those nice to to see $3 CPM lowly bloggers might hope for.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by googlemonopoly.eu.
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