Archive for the ‘media rx’ Category
Pay Walls: Pay for What Exactly?
What’s missing in the pay wall campaign is just a smidge of a consumer benefit — something that makes acquiring content easier, or simpler or cooler or just plain more convenient for users than the way they acquire content today. Paywalls are supply-side constructs. The repeated justification for paywalls is, “someone has to pay for [...]
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The Washington Post Co. just announced a sale process for Newsweek. It’s possible we’ll be reading about the closure of Newsweek in a few months. Here are three alternatives to closure: Low-ball Private Equity buyer. The $1-type private equity bidders are looking to cut costs quickly and dramatically enough to generate a return from the [...]
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We are all Horace Greeley now
Google’s CEO was right when he said that there isn’t a journalism problem, there’s a business model problem. I’d like to shine a light on the first part of that statement. There’s more journalism than ever now that everyone has access to the tools of journalism — the ability to report, write, film, collaboratively edit [...]
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Punitive iPad Content Pricing
I recently wrote that the iPad launch is a watershed moment for print publishers to reconsider the product and pricing strategy across all forms of delivery. Now news is breaking that the WSJ will be charging $17.29 per month ($207.48 per year) for the iPad version. This is 70% higher than the joint print/online subscription [...]
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iPad and Print
I’ve seen lots of chatter from journalists about the iPad saving print. And I’ve seen lots of snickering from web writers in response. Both responses are missing the point. You can see magazines feeling left out — books have the Kindle, music has the iPod, games have the Nintendo DS. How about the iPad for [...]
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Magazine publishers unite!
This video performance by the big magazine publishers underscores the problem for magazines. In the video, the publishers pooh-pooh the Internet, blame bloggers, and then lean heavily on the fact that magazine readership remains strong (how is that measured exactly?) to deny that magazines are troubled. The elephant in the video production room is the [...]
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Content bundles
Media properties are bundles of content. Albums, TV networks, magazines, newspapers — they’re all bundles content (and often ads). These bundles have been justified by the physical limitations of their medium such as paper, time based scheduling and CD storage space. In the digital era, advances in access, particularly search, destroy the logic of these [...]
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Build or Shrink
I’ve spent a good part of my career on the question of how media companies can transition to the digital world. As I see it, there are three basic options, illustrated above. 1. They can follow the status quo and accept a shrinking business. The status quo comes from treating digital as an ancillary business [...]
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