Newsday - beginning of the end for free content?

The New York tabloid Newsday is to end the practice of giving away content on the web. Precipitously this decision came on the day it was reported that a US daily newspaper, Rocky Mountain News, is to shut. Is it the beginning of the end of free content?

I blogged about the end of free content in-depth recently when I asked "Time for newspapers to start charging?". I went through the various arguments at the time and won't rehash here, but it is telling what has happened since I wrote.

That post was only written last Thursday, a mere eight days ago but that time elapsed feels a good deal longer.

Take a look at the headlines from the last week telling what has happened to the US and UK newspaper businesses in that short space of time.

Profits plummet at Washington Post as Gannett slashes dividend
by Staff, Brand Republic 26-Feb-09, 09:00

Regional titles suffer circulation declines in second half of 2008
by Maisie McCabe, mediaweek.co.uk 26-Feb-09, 16:

Trinity Mirror reports loss of £73m as revenues plunge
by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 26-Feb-09, 09:00

Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle could become next US newspaper casualty
by Staff, Brand Republic 25-Feb-09, 09:05

Trinity Mirror cuts 70 jobs as 50 face axe at Northcliffe
by Staff, Brand Republic 24-Feb-09, 08:50

Philadelphia's The Inquirer files for bankruptcy
by Staff, Brand Republic 23-Feb-09, 09:00

New York Times Company abandons dividend to save cash
by Staff, Brand Republic 20-Feb-09, 09:00

Until today no daily newspaper had closed, but wit the Rocky Mountain News shutting more are bound to follow.

Then enter Cablevision Systems Corp which bought Newsday in May 2008 from Tribune Corp for $650m. It has since had to write down Newsday's value by $402m.

Two things here really, clearly last May was not the smartest time for a company to enter the newspaper market. That said, considering no one quite knew how bad it was, you can call the decision to buy as unfortunate.

Cablevision had two options really. To relaunch the site and trundle onwards hoping things got better or go for the transformational option, which it plans by turning the site into "an enhanced, locally focused cable service that it hopes will become an important benefit for Newsday and Cablevision customers".

There are no details as yet. No clues to how much it might charge, but this move is going to be very closely watched.

Newsday has started the ball rolling and it doesn't take a genius to predict that others will follow suit.

In my post last week I mentioned the recent comments of Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times. He said there was a deadly serious discussion continuing within The Times about ways to get consumers to pay for newspapers’ content and they were looking at a list of options.

The headlines above from one week tell their own story. There are many more you can include from today (Nat Mags are cutting 15% of staff and B2B publisher Centaur has seen profits wiped out).

Something has to be done. Charging for content won't fix everything. It won't stop more publications closing, but it will give others another revenue stream and at the same time reverse a decade long trend.

That reversal needs to come for newspaper and with it a re-evaluation of the value people place on content (a significant one, I think). After all, content did once use to be king.

Follow me on Twitter

Microsoft taking new look social media strategy

PR Week is reporting today that Microsoft is taking a fresh look at its social media strategy and aims to beef up its consumer engagement.

It is looking at social media on a global scale as part of an effort to improve its consumer communications.

Let's face Microsoft needs all the help it can get these day.
 
The mag says that the software giant has called in Weber Shandwick, Edelman and Waggener Edstrom to present ideas to offer it anew direction and set strategy

A source told PR Week: "It is basically figuring out how it can tap into the power of social media and make specific impact for product groups."

Another source said the move was part of Microsoft's aim of "boosting consumer engagement" to better compete with Google and Apple.

"The digital aspiration is heavily consumer-oriented. Microsoft is pretty obsessed with developing a consumer franchise for the brand. Historically, it has had great b2b and government ­relations."
 
No comment from Microsoft, but what does it need to do? How can it use social media?

I'm not sure about you, but on the web it is not a brand I engage with in any way.

I don't use Microsoft Explorer, Hotmail, Windows Live or MSN. And as a consequence don't have any clear picture of Microsoft online, but one thing that occurs is that it feels very disparate with (to me) disconnected digital brands.

Other than the Xbox (don't have one) is there a digital brand that people would go all out for?

Follow me on Twitter

Terrrifying BBC trailer watch at your own peril

Have you seen the TV trailer for BBC Radio 4's Science Fiction series? It is a fine piece of scary advertising. The complaints are bound to rack up thick and fast for this cardiac arrest inducing trailer.

Other than the Today Programme, I never listen to Radio 4 despite some reasonably good intentions, but hearing the promo for this yesterday and seeing this I'm more than half inclined to listen to what the BBC has planned with programmes appearing on Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 7.

You can check out the full listings on the BBC website, but highlights include an adaption of HG Wells' The Time Machine by Philip Osment; 'Salmonella Man on Planet Porno' (a group of male researchers, on a quest to discover the secret of the bizarre planet Porno, become sexual objects themselves) on Radio 3, which sounds totally mad. There's an adaptation of Arthur C Clarke's classic novel 'Rendezvous with Rama' and an adaptation of  J.G. Ballard's novel 'The Drowned World' about a London that becomes a primordial swamp as global warming melts the ice-caps.

Better still there is also 'Bring Me The Head of Philip K Dick', which is described as a darkly disturbing story (well it would be wouldn't it being Philip K Dick') telling of a contemporary America where faith, national security and the very fabric of time are under attack from an unlikely and terrifying weapon invented by a shadowy research unit inside the Pentagon while the android head of Philip K. Dick is on the loose and wreaking havoc. His head clearly escaped from 'Futurama'.

More quality comes in the shape of 'The Sofa of Time'. A new comedy series starring Nick ('Shaun of the Dead') Frost. Apparently, it is said that those who sit on the Sofa of Time can be transported anywhere and to any time. That happens to me all the time.

Maybe best of all is a re-imaging of the classic British sci-fi series 'Blake's 7'. That's on BBC Radio 7 - well it had to be didn't it? That comes ahead of the show being remade for TV by Sky One. It made that announcement last year, but nothing recent has been heard on that front.

Talking of  re-imaging have you been watching the final episodes of 'Battlestar Galactica'? Sadly, there are only four episodes left ever and it has been a hell of a ride. Dark, bumpy and full of twists and surprises. Plus there was a reckoning, which turned out not to be a good thing if you only have one leg. Having been glued to it I have no idea who they are going to end it. Ellen Tigh though? What a shocker.

Follow me on Twitter

WPP units fight for online budgets

Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today about different units within WPP, from the creative and media side, competing against each other.

The paper picks up on WPP's media buying network Mediaedge's move to branch out from buying online media to helping clients build internet marketing operations and compares this with Ogilvy & Mather going full service on the digital front by buying oline media.

On the Mediaedge side it cites the launch last year of Mediaedge's Paris-based creative agency called Arthur Schlovsky - a fictional founder - and quotes Mark Read, WPP's head of strategy as saying that "the lines are blurring, and there is experimentation, particularly in digital around the edges".

Last month Mediaedge expanded Arthur Schlovsky into Germany and hired the executive creative director of Omnicom's BBDO Dusseldorf, Ralf Zilligen, as chairman. It has created a biographical film in 1940s-newsreel style crediting its make-believe founder with inventing merchandising and product placement.

Interestingly, the piece also said that Mediaedge had initially wanted to buy established digital ad agencies to do this rather than launch Arthur Schlovsky, but that was vetoed by Read.

Over at Ogilvy it has Neo@Ogilvy, which it set up back in 2006 and is now a much bigger affair, to buy online putting up against Mediaedge's MEC Interaction unit. Last year Neo@Ogilvy's UK business grew about 25%, according to managing director Richard Wheaton, and this year it is expected to increase about 15%.

"WPP fosters and encourages this internal competition," Wheaton says.

The danger for WPP is "duplication of effort and extra cost," says Chris Ingram, a co-founder of Mediaedge who is no longer with the firm. "It's like a land grab, and nobody has got any rules."

Time for newspapers to start charging?

I'm pretty sure that digital bosses at the UK's national newspapers are already thinking this, but as the managing director of Guardian News & Media, Tim Brooks, says in an interview today -- quality newspapers are "not profitable", is it time for publishers to reverse the trend of free content and start charging (again)?

Brooks, in an interview published today in Print Week, told the magazine that business models for the UK's leading newspapers "do not make any sense".

He said that due to declining circulations and the advent of online news, the quality press is being forced to re-evaluate its operations to make them sustainable.

"The real issue is that the quality press, in aggregate, is not profitable… The days when you can trade in just words are gone."

Brooks went on to say that he will never launch another printed newspaper and has pitched the company's future on multimedia and guardian.co.uk, announcing "All future investments will be digital".

Everyone knows this will be a tough year for print and Brooks has not ruled out making editorial cuts ("I am not saying we would never make editorial cuts because in 2009 all bets are off -- this is the worst year of my life in terms of trading."), but no one in the British newspaper market has put it quite as bluntly as Brooks.

It is refreshing in a way to hear and adds to the wider debate about how the industry will pay for this digital future.

We reached this point a while ago, but in early weeks of 2009 the issue of giving content away freely on the web has come into sharp focus as the newspaper industry (not to mention publishing generally) stares down the plug hole.

It was never meant to be a hole. It was going to work like this -- large investments in digital operations would pay off with large amounts of advertising revenues and traffic.

Well it half worked. Traffic for many newspaper sites like The Guardian has absolutely rocketed. Guardian.co.uk pulls in 26m unique users but revenues have proved less elusive.

I was thinking about this repeatedly over the last couple of weeks as 1) I auto renewed my £110 subscription to WSJ.com; 3) the rumblings continued over Google (again) following Robert Thomson's comments; and 3) as the debate raged over micro payments.

Retaining the subscription fee of the WSJ.com was clearly a smart move by Rupert Murdoch, who originally said he planned to ditch it. Having seen the numbers, why would anyone throw away the cash generated by 1m plus subscribers?

As the digital news business desperately seeks a business model why throw away one that works?

It is the business model in part that Robert Thomson, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, was talking about when he let rip at Google, claiming the search giant devalues everything it touches, "Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content."

This is an old argument (not without merit) and the industry seems to go through phases with Google with a mixture of grudging acceptance and resignation.

It is certainly true that Google has not led to any riches for the publishers it works with, but in defending his company the head of Google UK, Matt Brittin, has a bit of a point (40% of a point maybe?) when he says "it is not Google that is taking advertisers away. It is consumers changing their behaviour. And that presents challenges for all of us".

Consumers have been educated in part by publishers who gave them great content for free after early efforts to charge subscription models by the national press (New York Times Select for instance used to pull in $10m) and trade press alike, were ditched. Ditched because the future appeared to be an advertising led future, but (at the moment) it isn't working.

As Gary Kamiya on Salon put it, it is leading in some quarters to "The death of the news" as there is currently no business model making online reporting financially viable.

From a business perspective, reporting is a loser. There are good financial reasons why the biggest content-driven web business success story of the last few years, the Huffington Post, does very little original reporting. Reported pieces take a lot of time and cost a lot of money.

And then there are the newspapers, including the Seattle Times and Hearst's Seattle Post Intelligencer, who asked US lawmakers on Wednesday for a temporary tax, saying that some of the state's papers are "holding on by our fingertips", which brings us to payment and micropayments.

Much is written about this and I'm not going to rehash it other than to say there are some good pieces out there to read, both for and against. Walter Isaacson former managing editor of Time had a much quoted Time cover piece suggesting an iTunes-like micropayment system.

Others have joined the micropayments bandwagon, but as far as my 50 cents worth goes micropayments are a total non starter. I do not see it working. News is not like buying a track on iTunes. Music is something you own forever and news is pretty much disposable, gone in a day.

Take a look at Charles Arthur's Guardian piece "The micropayments argument: do we want to turn the web into Zimbabwe?" it’s definitely worth a read.

So, if not micropayments it has to be some form of subscription. Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, gave this a serious airing recently when answering readers’ questions.

Talking about the lessons of Times Select, Keller said that the lessons of that experiment "was not that readers won't pay for content", people in the news business "don't buy as a matter of theology that information wants to be free".

He said there was a deadly serious discussion continuing within The Times about ways to get consumers to pay for newspapers’ content and they were looking at a list of options.

Top of the list is the subscription model. What he says he is key to whether newspapers can get subs models to work again and use them as one plank of a viable future.

"Times Select was not the answer, but it's possible we just put the wrong stuff behind the wall. Maybe we should put it all there, or some different slice of it", as well as pointing out one of the inherent problems with paid content, which is that it limits traffic and ad revenues because it tends not to show up in searches.

"But if web advertising takes a long dive -- or if some clever engineer figures out how to decouple a paid Web site from the search function -- a subscription model might be worth a closer look".

I have no idea what the subscription answer is, but the idea of putting it all behind a wall (if you can solve the search conundrum) with a moderate annual charge is certainly once again an appealing one, but it would only work if this was an industry wide move.

And shouldn't it be? If the economic crises has taught us anything recently it is that collective action is needed to save a number of industries. Why should newspapers be any different?

Follow me on Twitter

Obama digital guru says it can work for Labour

Good piece in the Guardian today talking to Thomas Gensemer who was behind Barack Obama's groundbreaking digital campaign.

Gensemer is in town to launch an office of his agency Blue State Digital, which was recently appointed by a group fighting the British National Party's attempt to win seats in the European parliament elections this June.

Gensemer reckons he has some lessons for Gordon Brown and Labour having recruited 13.5m supporters and raised $500m for the Obama campaign via barackobama.com.

He told the paper that it isn't about the technology, but that the real questions are: "What are your goals, and how can you use technology to achieve them? Our biggest sales pitch is that we couple the services along with the technology. A lot of our competition just sells technology, and the types of organisation and causes that we like to work with, if I go in and sell them really powerful technology, it doesn't do them any good, because they don't have the wherewithal to make sense of it."

He says he wants to demystify online campaigning and argues that organisations can build very quickly if they do the messaging right.

We've seen that a lot recently with the anti-Israeli protests. I don't agree with these groups, but it has been interesting how these grass roots groups have used social media to organise very effectively.

Gensemer is right when he says that any campaign, be it the Democrats or Labour, has to nurture active supporters, rather than passive donors. It has to be about the grass roots, down to what the CLPs and wards are doing as much as anything.

Labour and Labour activists have already made a start with a couple of sites, which we've written about here. With the launch of Derek Draper's LabourList.org and the Party's Labourspace.com.

There's also been digital agency Tangent One appointing former Labour Party head of corporate comms, Paul Simpson, to manage its Labour Party account and Labour turning to Twitter and Facebook to keep in touch with constituents with a The new campaign that allows MPs to upload communication targeted at their constituents on Facebook, Twitter and through email.

Launching all of this is fine, but Labour like any party has to work hard to ensure that it gets the simple stuff right (Gensemer relates a story about people asked to email in their views – but four days and 78,000 emails later nothing had been read) and ensuring that social media becomes part of the DNA rather than window dressing. It is also essential, Gensemer says, that it is not about gimmicks, which is always a danger when new things (like Twitter) suddenly emerge and the bandwagon is boarded.

"They have focused too much on gimmicks and what they can sell to the press. Now Labour MPs are using Twitter, but the political capital that went into getting a couple of MPs to Twitter probably wasn't worth it. Prescott's petition on the bankers has 15,000 signatures, but what are they asking people to do? You could have asked for different things that would create a greater sense of engagement. None of this is a technology challenge; it's an organisational challenge, being willing to communicate with people."

Gensemer tells the paper he is convinced that the social media digital approach can work even in the much less geographically disparate UK.

And then he gets to what he is really here for: to win the Labour Party digital election campaign for Blue State Digital having already set out their stall with work on Jon Cruddas's bid in 2006-07 for the Labour deputy leadership and Ken Livingstone's unsuccessful re-election bid last year for London mayor.

"We're very eager, and I think it would work equally well here. I don't think they're going to raise a half a billion dollars, but it certainly would raise far more money than it costs and you could make a big difference. As our work with Jon Cruddas and Ken Livingstone shows, if you ask people to do things they will do it, in similar numbers that we see in the States."

Follow me on Twitter

Bleak future for Friends Reunited?

As ITV considers unloading Friends Reunited for a knockdown price the future looks uncertain to bleak for the one time darling of the UK internet scene, which has long been superseded by more nimble rivals.

One of a number of things is going to happen to Friends Reunited: it will either shrivel into insignificance; it will be bought by someone without the ideas to continue it as a niche business that quietly ticks over; or it could be bought by someone bigger who can potentially grow it.

Given AOL's recent experience with Bebo the chances of the latter happening seems slim. Bebo was a much more powerful social media brand than Friends Reunited, but that too has suffered and underperformed.

Bebo's value is thought to have fallen by as much as 75% with AOL originally paying $850m and is now reported to be worth as little as $200m.

If similar maths were applied to ITV's Friends Reunited the £175m it paid for the site at the end of 2005 (which at the time represented a multiple of more than eight times its annual turnover) it would be worth as little as £40m. A figure that some think is not far off what it will be sold for.

Even when ITV bought Friends Reunited it had passed its heyday. In 2004/05 the national press was full of Friends Reunited stories. Marriages were falling apart and couples were divorcing as old school flames got back together courtesy of Friends Reunited.

That publicity brought massive growth in the same way we have since seen with Facebook and Twitter, but it has not come again as the strategy behind Friends Reunited failed to quickly adapt to a fast changing market. The next generation of users, after that rush of bored marrieds looking for affairs, didn't log on to Friends Reunited like their older relatives. No, instead they logged on to Facebook or MySpace and bypassed Friends Reunited altogether and pretty much sealing its fate.

To be fair MySpace and Facebook had on their sides global scale and a multifarious offering, which came from fact that their arrival kickstarted the explosion in social media. Facebook and MySpace defined that space.

It was at that moment Friends Reunited should have relaunched and ridden the wave, but it didn't (doesn't hindsight rock) and it wasn't until last summer that it did finally revamp, redesign and go free. I'm pretty sure it was all too little too late and its spin-off sites like dating/genes are bit part players in their markets.

As I look at it today, of the long list of suggested school/college friends on the site I am presented with, none of whom have filled in any details on their profiles indicating that while many people visit the site (at one point) fewer spend time on the site or return quickly. I don't click on any as there is nothing to see. I leave and I move on.

Add to that the fact that no one talks about Friends Reunited. It simply never comes up in conversation. I am not a huge Facebook user either, but I get new friends and invites as well as various bits of activity related to the site and my profile regularly. I am currently organising a stag weekend and everyone is on Facebook. It is the natural space to do that kind of activity. Friends Reunited simply doesn't enter into the conversation.

The arrival of Twitter is further bad news for Friends Reunited as the more social networking sites that people are actively engaged with the less time they have to spend on rival sites. A site that you might have visited once a week/month falls off the radar. Friends Reunited is off of the radar. That blip is gone.

If you are a Twitter user, say with a MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn account; you maybe have MSN Messenger and Flickr to boot; with a Hotmail and Gmail account to manage as well; is there really time for Friends Reunited?

It is a tough sell. There isn't the space or time in your average social media users life for Friends Reunited. That appears to be one of the things that ITV, like AOL, has realised, which means the future could well be very bleak unless someone can come up with a radical strategy to reinvigorate the business.

Personally, I don't see it happening although niche survival remains an option.

Follow me on Twitter

Fox's Remote free TV experiment kicks off with Dollhouse

ITV is having a bad time of it and advertisers aren't impressed, but what's the solution? Does ITV need to tweak its model and maybe take a look at Fox's bold “Remote-Free TV” experiment?

It seems unfair to rub it in again as everyone has stuck it to ITV recently, but these last few weeks have not been good ones for Britain's biggest terrestrial commercial broadcaster.

ITV clearly has a problem. Seeing its prime time police footage show 'In the Line of Fire' coming third in the TV ratings behind Five and 'CSI Miami' this week really does not help. Add to this the recent fiasco over in the FA Cup replay between Everton and Liverpool when in a (almost) comical fashion ITV1 cut away to the break as the only goal in a long and boring game was scored you can see why advertisers are thinking twice.

Maybe the decision to re-commission 1940s detective drama 'Foyle's War' and other new quality programmes will help, but it needs to innovate more as it did with last year's successful 'Lost in Austen'. The buzz around that was palpable. That's what advertisers are looking for.

Combining that buzz with some more valued, more expensive, and sought after ad breaks could also provided a much needed shot in the arm.

The New York Times today has a piece on Fox TV's "Remote-Free TV" experiment, which has seen the broadcaster test a strategy of airing fewer-commercials each hour.

It began with its 'X-Files'-like drama 'Fringe'. That show aired with around 10 minutes of commercials, which is about four to six minutes fewer than the typical hour long show.

It will be doing this again with Josh Whedon's upcoming secret agent drama starring Eliza Dushku. Whedon is making that show for Fox even after his much praised but shortlived show 'Firefox' was cancelled (he also made 'Buffy the Vampre Slayer and the also cancelled 'Angel' for Fox as well). Interesting, but I guess as an aside, ITV has an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox TV to co-develop and produce programmes, in a deal that is meant to rival the BBC's fruitful transatlantic co-production agreement with HBO, which has delivered hits like 'Rome' and 'Band of Brothers'.

For its troubles Fox is reported to have received 40% to 50% premiums for the advertising sold for 'Fringe'. According to Ad Age, an average 30-second ad on 'Fringe' cost $343,000 making it the most expensive show in its slot by far.

In the case of 'Fringe it seems also to come down to the type of show, with sci-fi oriented programming pulling in entertainment and technology based advertising with advertisers ranging from Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal to Apple and Verizon Wireless with retailers in there also.

Other than 'Primeval' and 'Demons' of late ITV has always been light on this kind of programming that the Americans do so well.

Question is, would this remote free TV experiment work for ITV? There's no reason why not and the benefits appear to weigh up experimentation. The US network is not running it for every show just certain dramas. As well as premium ad rates the results are also said to include more attentive viewers who are paying more attention to what they are watching as there is less ad clutter and less ad skipping. That is a real win for advertisers.

Sure the experiment has its critics. That much is evident in the response of Jon Nesvig, the president of sales for Fox Broadcasting, who said last week that the format has worked "reasonably well" for 'Fringe'.

Nesvig added that "the jury is still out on the economics" and that "even if it wasn’t an absolutely positive financial success, it was definitely a worthwhile experiment and something that I am glad we have attempted and will continue to work on.”

Follow me on Twitter

Twitter says it will remain free for all

Here's a confusing one. Twitter has posted on its blog that the micro blogging service will remain free for all - individuals, companies and celebrities. Brands it seems will not have to pay after all.

On Monday Twitter founder Biz Stone told Marketing that as more companies use Twitter it was looking for ways to make this experience even more valuable and "charge for commercial accounts".

However, in a blog post that went up last night, Biz Stone says something slightly different. Bottom line is that they won't be charging – in the near future at least. Read it for yourself:

"There was a sudden burst of news early this week surrounding some ideas we've shared publicly for quite some time. We've been thinking out loud for more than a year about the growing use of Twitter by companies, brands, and other commercial organizations. It's great that both individuals and organizations are finding value in Twitter and there may be ways we can enrich the experience. In fact, we hope to begin iterating on revenue products this year.

"However, it's important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we're thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don't have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we'll be sure to let you know," posted by @Biz.

There were mixed reactions to the news yesterday and it sparked a huge number of comments and debate on Brand Republic and across the web as more as more and more woke up to the growing phenomenon that is Twitter. There were lots of alternative ideas and advice as to what Twitter should do, maybe that was what they were looking for.

Maybe that had something to do with Twitter falling over today and going offline for 40 minutes I hardly knew what to do with myself.

Follow me on Twitter

Twitter should charge business users

And why not? Twitter is a great service that has set the web and media alight with chatter. Businesses find it very useful and to me that seems like a clear sign that Twitter should benefit from some of that and start to pull in some revenues.

Since Twitter launched in 2006 it has been searching for a way to make money. There have been a few false starts alone the way, and two and half years later it still makes very little while growing exponentially - just look at this weekend gone, it was everywhere. Making cash is the conundrum that afflicts a lot of web ventures, both in this Web 2.0 originated boom over the last couple of years and in the dotcom boom of 2000.

The story that Marketing has today "Twitter plots charges for commercial users" says specifically Twitter plans is to charge brands. The magazine quotes Twitter co-founder Biz Stone saying more and more companies are using Twitter and individuals following them.

"We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.'

He added that Twitter could also create revenue-generating features to tap into the way brands use Twitter as a hybrid marketing and customer-service tool.

There is no word on the level of charges so far or how all encompassing the move will be, but Twitter has proved such a success and most of us are probably following a brand or two. Even ones we might not directly consider brands (maybe like news services?).

The move does raise a number of questions. It does, of course, have to be pitched just so. Some have already raised concerns that if the price is too high it could kill off Twitter.

In a quick survey of the Twittverse the replies give a mixed response. With some in favour and others concerned about the model or the principle of charging for the service.

AlastairDuncan @GordonM Twitter proposing charging business users. Would consumers pay for twitter, like you they do for SMS on mobile?

mattwaring @GordonM - keeps Twitter ad free - Twitter is the new DM, dont see why companies will not pay, perfect return, you know who/what, etc

vanessaavina Icon_lock @BrandRepublic certainly adds another communications tool for business to customers and other businesses

JamesAShaw @GordonM The money's got to come from somewhere! Charging for additional 'business' features may be better than guessing who's a business..

benbold @GordonM Brands should pay to promote themselves

Direct message from Chris Byrne great idea... Will bring a linkedin quality to twland...Chris Byrne / sensorpro

sandlines @GordonM I think you just invited the first invoice from Twitter. I'd be curious to know how they plan to differentiate 'commercial' use

Direct message from sensorpro great idea... Will bring a linkedin quality to twland

I agree with most of those points. It is definitely a tool. Payment I think would help Twitter evolve and develop and possibly make it even more useful to brands already using it. Some of the pioneering work done on Twitter by the likes : Comcast (Comcastcares), DirectTV  and HRblock has really paid off.

Check this very good blog post for others in the US.

As well as grow Twitter has a right to make some cash out of what it does. It is the ideas of Stone and co who have made this all possible and it is also more appealing than advertising.

For many brands it has become an increasingly important driver of traffic to websites and so works very well as a marketing tool.

Clearly, however, some have reservations about the model:

DanDimmock @GordonM It will be interesting to see how they plan to admin this - more commercial ambition in here than straight fwd 'business'!

finncomms @BrandRepublic It's not in the spirit of this social media platform. They should look to a donations style a la Wikipedia or Tiny URL.

Interesting point about social media and comparing it to Wikipedia, but I am not sure it’s the same. Wiki from the start was something very different to Twitter and they do very different things.

DanDimmock @GordonM Not sure I agree. Twitts have choice as to who they comm/conv. - as long as that opt isn't removd why change? Ah, $$$!

Direct message from Nick Myers - Better model wld b 2 chrge ppl 2 follow famous or popular ppl - subscrpition based model. But @ v minimal, or one off chrge eg apple store. Nick Myers / MyEveryMove

Direct message from Nick Myers Biz r only just starting 2 use Twtr, to charge will put them off. Nick Myers / MyEveryMove

I don't think businesses are going to be put off, particularly not if it continues to grow at the rates we are seeing. It's going to be interesting.

Follow me on Twitter

Twitter of a weekend

If you had been in any doubt this weekend must have cleared it up. It was kind of amazing. I don't know what happened, but I could not escape Twitter. It was literally everywhere I went: online, in print, on TV and radio. It was like someone flicked (Tweeted) a huge switch.

Of course, there was the buzz about Jonathan Ross and the Bafta's and his promise to insert some random word into his speech, which he did when he said: "In my view, actors are in many ways like salad – they are nothing without great dressing."

The comment was, of course, was for those not in the know met with confused silence, as Ross went on: "I will pause for a moment to let the magnitude of that analogy sink in for you." The choice of salad came after Ross's mighty army of 75,000 sleb followers on Twitter (which I talked about last week) were asked to suggest a silly word.To the relief of the BBC, as really I don't think it can take another Ross incident he aid he would to reject anything "overtly sexual".

Not just Ross, The Times was at it on Saturday morning devoting part of its leading article to Twitter: "We no longer measure out our lives in coffee spoons. No, we do it in tweets on Twitter".

I know that has to be the case as John Prescott launched his campaign against greedy bankers on Facebook and Twitter as well. While it made it into the script of US sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory' (okay it is the ultimate geek sitcom) in an episode I vegged on during Sunday afternoon.

I checked my work email and it was just full of new followers for Brand Republic. We're still working on that, but are trying to be proactive.

Xfm, it seemed over night had gone Twitter mad overnight, with every show I caught bits of mentioning Twitter. I even Twittered in to Marsha's show on Sunday - my first radio tweet, and got a shout out for my efforts.

Oh and, of course, 'Mad Men' is back on BBC Four tomorrow and there has been a huge Twitter buzz around Don Drapper and company, which was the headline on the front of the Guardian Guide.

Don Drapper along with many other fans of the show are tweeting away merrily with at least five Peggy Olsons going strong. She is a popular girl.

That brings us to Monday and Charlie Brooker in the Guardian who like Jonathan Ross has been asking people on Twitter for some one word suggestions as what to write about.

"To glance back through this list, it would seem that asking Twitter for advice on what to write about isn't a great gambit, full stop. The top three suggestions were either too obvious or have been covered at length elsewhere, and the rest were either too dirty to go into in detail (a shame, in my view), or blended into white noise by dint of sheer volume.

"In summary, I've learned nothing and neither have you. But it's passed some time. And that's Twitter all over. Anyway, next week: Israel v Palestine - who's right?"

Follow me on Twitter

Why would you follow a Celebrity on Twitter

Good blog post on the Guardian today, on social media (Bobbie Johnson "I've had it with social media") and the incessant chatter it creates. One elements of that, particularly with Twitter, is celebrities. Who follows these people and why on earth would you do it?

Johnson's problem isn't really with the celeb angle (but it is mine), his was more taking issue with the endless talk about "social media going mainstream"every time some "event" happens where it gets massively Tweeted or the pic was taken with an iPhone. The latest incident to get this treatment being Batman actor Christian Bale's hissy fit. An odd one considering that unlike the Hudson River crash Bale's outburst happened last summer, but just leaked out via an MP3 or something - personally I couldn't care a less (although waiting with bated breath for Terminator 4...maybe not baited, I'm guessing you can't be baited for too long).

I digress, he has a point though, but one of the things that really find quite bizarre with the whole social media thing is the endless writing about and obsessing about celebrities and their usage of social media. This is particularly bad on Twitter (well it is all the rage) where there are endless Tweets and ReTweets of the musings of Stephen Fry and others. I just don't care, honest to god, I don't and why would anyone?

More to the point, why would 103,000 plus people? Stephen Fry is the most followed person in the UK, followed by Jonathan Ross (Wossy) with almost 50,000 followers. Then there is JohnCleese, more than 45,000, and Phillip Schofield (schofe)      20,000 plus - that's really weird. Whatever the attraction is I don't want to know. Personally I find these statistics a little depressing. There is a list of the top 50 celebs that someone has blogged (although some must be fakes - Demi Moore -Mrs Kutcher? Lol).     

Do people really like Stephen Fry? Is he that interesting. My interest in Fry stops at 'Blackadder'. My interest in celebrity is confined to movies I like and the writers I read. Whether they go for a walk or take a crap is, well, not in the least bit interesting. Well as uninteresting in learning that somone I follow tells me "off for coffee". Yeah, you and a billion others.

I use Twitter for work, I pick up good links, and I don't care one iota what Wossy or Fry have to say or why I would want to tell anyone. I just don't get it. Is it simply to feel closer, connected, to the world of celebrity? Buy yourself a copy of Heat.This simply feels more like the ever spreading celebrity virus that it seems now must exist in all areas of life. No exceptions, no get out clauses. And yeah, I realise, that this might come off as bah humbug, but, hey, I don't mind (honest). So take your best shot.

Follow me on Twitter