(Annette Moser-Wellman)

Many believe the demise of the newspaper business model began with the decision to give content away on the Internet. Why buy the paper, the magazine, the newsletter when you can get the same thing online for free? Increasingly, innovators are trying to reverse consumer expectation that content should be free and find fresh ways to create revenue through micro-payment, subscription and more. Is it possible to reclaim at least some of the cash?

The industry is closely watching the efforts of the start-up Journalism Online. Still in prelaunch phase, Journalism Online is a reader revenue platform that allows publishers the ability to experiment with different ways to charge for online content. Targeted toward anyone who publishes original content online through any electronic devise, the Journalism Online platform is designed to collect revenue from multiple forms of online content.

In my conversation with Steven Brill, one of the Founders of Journalism Online, I asked him about the inception of the idea and their vision for the future.


What does success look like for you? Is it the number of publishers you sign on?

Well, no. We already have letters of intent from publishers representing about 1200 newspapers, magazines and online sites around the world. So that's good. But I guess you can measure success a bunch of ways. One way goes back to the root of why I got involved in this; to create a sustainable business model for independent journalism. If I woke up in three years and saw there were lots of publishers that had a business model based on people valuing content and paying something for it and wanted to hire journalists to produce it, that would be one measure.

Journalism Online is obviously a business and that's a second measure. We get a 20% share of all the revenue we create to build our technology, service customers, and market the publications. In one sense, it wouldn't kill me if another competitor came in and did this more effectively. At least I would have won the first battle that got me into this in the first place - giving journalists an environment in which they can actually make a living. Obviously, I prefer to win both battles.


How does Journalism Online work?

Our tools allow the publisher to select from 16 different 'dials' or criteria to determine the most effective way to charge for their content. Whether it's letting people have 20 to 30 free visits, the first three paragraphs of an article, or huge discounts if they are a print subscriber before they charge, we offer a variety of mechanisms to allow publishers to set the price and the terms. Their customers use a common password to click and buy any and all content across thousands of websites. The publishers get market intelligence about what kinds of offers are working and what kinds of offers aren't working. For example, is a monthly subscription more effective than a day pass or a micro-payment?


If I'm a publisher and I have unique content, don't I take a risk by putting it behind a pay wall? Can't I make more advertising revenue from it if it's free?

It's a myth that this is an either-or proposition - that you can't get both advertising revenue and revenue from readers. You're still going to get people to the site and make advertising revenue. The only page views you're going to lose are perhaps the 10% of the people that you're going to charge. And if all of the 10% say 'no', which they are not, then you would lose 10% of your page views. If most of them say 'yes', you'll actually end up with more ad revenue because you can charge a higher cpm for people who pay to read content than those who don't. That's the way it's always worked in print newspapers and magazines.

When you start charging for content two things happen. First, online circulation revenue gets created and second, print revenue goes up. The thing that's driving print revenue down is everybody realizing they can go get whatever is on the newsstand for free. And every publication that has started charging for some of their online content has seen their print circulation staying the same or go up.


So you're expecting consumers to change their behavior and to pay for good content online?

No. Not everything online is free. Your ring tones aren't free. Books aren't free. Steve Jobs has done a pretty good job of changing expectation of free when it comes to music. You're right in that there is an expectation that most news online is free, but that is changing. But that expectation can change if you turn our dials gradually - and don't just drop a so-called pay wall. To get one form of revenue publishers don't have to sacrifice another. They always had both revenue streams in print. It's only all the idiots who decided to give away everything for free online who created the myth that it's an either-or proposition.


Annette Moser-Wellman is President of Firemark, Inc., an innovation consultancy, and author of Six Competencies of the Next Generation News Organization and Running While The Earth Shakes: Creating An Innovation Strategy To Win In The Digital Age, both published by the Media Management Center.

This TechScout article is part of a series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by the Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view other articles in the TechScout series.

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