On hearing the news this morning that The Economist is to charge for news content across its site I was wondering why they waited so long. The Economist is a natural for paid content in the same way that the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are. They are likely to end up being select members...
There is a longish piece in the New York Times over the weekend looking at The Financial Times and its paid content strategy. The paper quotes John Ridding, the chief executive of the FT, insisting that people will pay for general news content. It's a sort of Field of Dreams approach. You know, charge...
Huge sigh of relief has been breathed around the world this morning by newspaper executives everywhere who were all waiting for someone to make the first move and charge for content. Rupert Murdoch has never been a patient man. Murdoch has made the first move, taken the gamble and the turnpike towards...
Financial Times editor Lionel Barber has been telling Channel 4 News why news organisations have to act now and charge for online content and how they can do it like the FT. Not sure about that one. Timing is everything and it's striking that the Financial Times is talking paid content in the week...
The FT has a quick look at how KFC scored on Twitter and the pros-and cons of promotions. Americans and their chicken, I will never get that, but KFC knocked it out of the park on Twitter earlier this year (with a few pitfalls) along the way. The fast food chain had agreed a deal with Oprah Winfrey to...
Excuse the exclamation mark, but it’s the silly season, which has to account for the FT's front page story about a 15-year-old on work experience at Morgan Stanley, who wrote a report for the bank and amazed analysts up and down the square mile: apparently kids do not watch TV and Twitter is only...
Chris Anderson is not having a good week. It's open season on the Wired editor-in-chief who earlier this week suffered an assault by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker. Today it is the turn of the FT and its message is clear: "Free does not live up to its billing". Gladwell kicked off an...
Did Google ever really want a newspaper? Did it want the New York Times? Well it doesn't now and has told the FT that it is really not interested. Maybe it has worked out that, well, while it can make money out of newspapers they in themselves are worthless black holes. There had been speculation...
John Gapper in the FT today has a good piece on the woes of the New York Times, but he says the Gray Lady is one of the "few print publications with a good chance of thriving in the digital age". It has been a helluva week for the New York Times as mogul David Geffen emerged as someone being...
So the Wall Street Journal got it moving as it launches first with micro payments after Rupert Murdoch hinted heavily last week. It was the most obvious to go first, but what the industry really wants is for someone else to leap. People will shortly be able to buy individual articles according to WSJ...
