Monday, October 25, 2010

Charging for news...

I wanted to post some comments about newspapers around the country and their lack of website design as well as their choice to have subscriptions to view online content.  Many papers from around the US are just sadly designed with an utter clutter of annoying advertising.  Yes, papers themselves have advertising but I do not believe that it is as bad as their corrosponding websites.  The design is a ring of medium sized advertising with the actual content of the page centered amid the ads.  I would like to see the research that went into the layout for these pages as well as the charge structure for the advertising.  Even considering Google heatmaps, I have to assume that any of the ads above, below and to the right of the articles are most likely not even glanced at.  I understand papers all over the world are having a tough time competing with online content but I believe they are making choices that are not helping them recoup any losses.  By charging to view online content they are forcing would be customers to seek their news from the unlimited free sources the net has to offer.  Even local news and updates can be found on individual blogs such as this, free of charge!  And you are also allowed to feed your news back on here as well, for free!  Thank you for your time, I just had to get that off my chest...
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2 comments:

  1. Jim D.October 25, 2010 at 8:31 PM

    Here! Here! Newspapers just are not getting it at all. (One of the worst: www.toledoblade.com)
    The revenue model is upside down, and the value proposition is out of whack with the speed of the Internet and the decreasing attention spans of readers. A shift in the fundamental strategy is called for, or else expect to see fewer papers.

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  2. MadeleineOctober 26, 2010 at 5:46 PM

    I agree! I think several years ago there was a scare in the print industry that print was dying and everyone rushed onto the internet without a proven ad model. We see sites like facebook growing with a different type of model. Newspapers and other print sources tried to adapt the print model to the web and it hasn't been successful. I admit, though, that while I mourn the loss of in-depth, independent journalism, I am not willing to pay for news when so much is provided for free. Although, news sources like NPR seem to be succeeding. What if newspapers were non-profits that the public supported with donations? Probably not the answer, but they clearly haven't figured it out either.

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