Monday, March 14, 2005
How We Read
As a timely continuation of the "E-Reading" theme, an article in today's NY Times asks Can Papers End the Free Ride Online? The lead paragraph says quite a lot about the consumer-driven media market : "Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on the Web when it comes to music services like iTunes and gaming sites like Xbox Live. But when it comes to online news, they are happy to read it but loath to pay for it. "
Less than 3% of the nation's daily newspapers (only the WSJ among the big ones) charge for their websites; the NYT website is free and its online readership now surpasses its print readership. So where does the money come from to sustain the free riders? Advertising is the answer; and since many free sites require a registration form, ads can be focused or tailored to individual segments of the reader base. One recent studyof 700 daily newspapers found online ad revenues increasing an average of 45% from 2003 to 2004.
The trend to support news operation by ads instead of subscriptions has executives worried about the long term reliability of the revenue stream.But there do not seem to be good options. Changing from free online sites to paid online subscriptions has not worked out well - often resulting in a big decline in online readers ( and ad revenues) for little or no increase in print readership. Even the WSJ has kept its free online Opinion Journal site and has acquired MarketWatch, a free financial news website, to attract online advertising. As an executive at a smaller newspaper put it : "Print is going the way it's going, which is down..."
As if market pressure were an insufficient driver towards free online reading, governments are getting in the act too. The US and UK governments are giving academia added incentives to publish research journal articles online for free or open access, on the theory that government grants pay for much of the research. As discussed in this IEEE article, Information Free-for-All? , open access may be a trend that cannot be resisted.
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is one of the largest international professional organizations in the world and publishes a wide variety of scholarly journals and topic area magazines. The Institute is reviewing its publishing options and strategies and is being urged to experiment now "when we have the luxury of income from subscriptions and can afford to" as one leader put it. Similar concerns were expressed by news executives in the NYT article above.
By the way, the IEEE has been publishing online for years, offering members the subscription choices of online, print or both for different prices. An online combination package offers most journals, extensive archives and search tools at a fraction of the cost of individual subscriptions. That's the choice of many active professionals. While no longer professionally active, I've gone online for my IEEE pubs as well as most other news sources. It save a lot of paper clutter, is more convenient and allows fast easy access to other information pertinent to whatever I'm reading.
A few years ago, I started the business day by skimming the NYT and WSJ papers; now I still skim them and more - but online. How we read is changing and faster than we realize.
Less than 3% of the nation's daily newspapers (only the WSJ among the big ones) charge for their websites; the NYT website is free and its online readership now surpasses its print readership. So where does the money come from to sustain the free riders? Advertising is the answer; and since many free sites require a registration form, ads can be focused or tailored to individual segments of the reader base. One recent studyof 700 daily newspapers found online ad revenues increasing an average of 45% from 2003 to 2004.
The trend to support news operation by ads instead of subscriptions has executives worried about the long term reliability of the revenue stream.But there do not seem to be good options. Changing from free online sites to paid online subscriptions has not worked out well - often resulting in a big decline in online readers ( and ad revenues) for little or no increase in print readership. Even the WSJ has kept its free online Opinion Journal site and has acquired MarketWatch, a free financial news website, to attract online advertising. As an executive at a smaller newspaper put it : "Print is going the way it's going, which is down..."
As if market pressure were an insufficient driver towards free online reading, governments are getting in the act too. The US and UK governments are giving academia added incentives to publish research journal articles online for free or open access, on the theory that government grants pay for much of the research. As discussed in this IEEE article, Information Free-for-All? , open access may be a trend that cannot be resisted.
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is one of the largest international professional organizations in the world and publishes a wide variety of scholarly journals and topic area magazines. The Institute is reviewing its publishing options and strategies and is being urged to experiment now "when we have the luxury of income from subscriptions and can afford to" as one leader put it. Similar concerns were expressed by news executives in the NYT article above.
By the way, the IEEE has been publishing online for years, offering members the subscription choices of online, print or both for different prices. An online combination package offers most journals, extensive archives and search tools at a fraction of the cost of individual subscriptions. That's the choice of many active professionals. While no longer professionally active, I've gone online for my IEEE pubs as well as most other news sources. It save a lot of paper clutter, is more convenient and allows fast easy access to other information pertinent to whatever I'm reading.
A few years ago, I started the business day by skimming the NYT and WSJ papers; now I still skim them and more - but online. How we read is changing and faster than we realize.
