Comments on: No, I’m not ‘against’ people paying for online news

By: Richard Reisman

Richard Reisman — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:34:39 +0000

FairPay is a radically new adaptive pricing process that can change the game in the media/content industry.

What is needed in a revenue model for digital products, is not to choose the right price (free or not), but to create an adaptive pricing process.

1. Selectively offer to let the buyer set any price he considers fair after the sale (Pay What You Want, post-sale).

2. Let the seller (or a collective of sellers) track that price and use that information to determine whether to make further offers of that kind to that buyer in the future.

Call this enhanced process Fair Pay What You Want, or FairPay for short.

Instead of a fixed price, this process generates a cooperative and adaptive series of pricing actions, each based on feedback on how fairly the buyer sets his prices.

This buyer reputation feedback process enables sellers to go beyond freemium to offer adaptive hybrids of free and paid service. Those who pay fairly, rise above the pay wall — those who do not, must face it.

More background is at http://teleshuttle.com/FairPay/default.htm, and my blog at FairPayZone.com.

A news example is at http://www.fairpayzone.com/2010/06/fairpay-for-timesfor-journalismonline.html.

I welcome any feedback and inquiries.

By: Sandhedens time for nyhedsmedier « Ny Journalistik

Sandhedens time for nyhedsmedier « Ny Journalistik — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:29:50 +0000

[...] Steve Outing: No, I´m not “against” people paying for online news [...]

By: Medial Digital» Linktipps Neu » Linktipps zum Wochenstart: On the internet no one knows you’re a newspaper!

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:23:55 +0000

[...] No, I’m not ‘against’ people paying for online news [...]

By: This Week in Review: Time’s non-pay paywall, free vs. pay in Britain and what to do with content farms | This Is An Awesome Web Site

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:01:10 +0000

[...] contrast with the Times’ protectionist strategy online. Outing did it most explicitly in two posts, arguing that the Guardian’s strategy taps into a worldwide revenue potential, while the [...]

By: This Week in Review: Time’s non-pay paywall, free vs. pay in Britain and what to do with content farms » Nieman Journalism Lab

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:03:26 +0000

By: Guardians kloge gang mod strømmen | Digit.alt!

Guardians kloge gang mod strømmen | Digit.alt! — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:11:48 +0000

[...] nu er, at flere mediehuse overvejer, hvordan de kan gemme deres indhold væk bag betalingsmure. De tror, at fordi indhold koster mange penge at producere, skal man også kunne få en høj pris for de… (selvom den form for logik vist trods alt kun eksisterer i [...]

By: Pernille Tranberg

Pernille Tranberg — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:51:16 +0000

Dear Steve – thanks for the explanation. We do agree in many ways. I don’t believe people will pay for general news (there are too many of them), and I don’t believe in The Times general paywall, but ft.com and wsj.com and aftonbladet.se (a paid for service on a Swedish tabloid website where you pay for content the others don’t have) seem to work very well.
Guardian might be able to do what they do because it is a global brand, but what about brands in smaller non-english speaking countries?

Anyway, the freemium model, I believe, with free general content and paid-for specialized content will have to work – along with lots of other small revenue streams.
Depending only on ads and sponsors is simply not gonna work. Unless, of course, we know how to beat Google, Facebook, Twitter and all the other brilliant services living on ads (and others’ content;-)
cheers
Pernille, Copenhagen