DISQUS

dredman · 3 months ago

Matt, of course the pay system needs improvement. With Zong, Facebook and others waiting in the wings to conceive new transaction models, it's just a matter of time before the web is properly monetized. You can't possibly say on one hand 'the internet isn't working' and then dismiss that micropayments aren't the answer. Bigger ads, PHOOEY!! Nobody is fooled by that. For the major media outlets to survive and the entire intellectual hub of America to be preserved pay-for-net needs to be rolled out. Murdoch has it right. More thoughts on that here: http://www.evisibility.com/blog/it’s-official-r...

Matt · 3 months ago

I think it's way too early to tell. The battle between SEO (paid advertising) and a paid content system will never end because, frankly, brands will always need to get in front of eyeballs.

Take the WSJ, which is already a paid model for much of its content. You can get it all for free by simply entering a story's headline into Google. The paper has this back door to optimize search - without it their stories would be about as statistically relevant as the average diatribing blogger.

But without the back door, WSJ couldn't charge as much for advertising. Nor can it operate without it when there is so much free content.

Furthermore, there will always be content providers online who regurgitate what they've read in the papers whathaveyou. Inevitably, this will hurt the pay-players. Think of the Web like the company watercooler - where people come to trade stories...a newsstand the Web is not.

dredman · 3 months ago

The 'water cooler' has allowed for rampant capitalism and entrepreneurship (not usually bad), at the expense of the pubs. You have a great point, and I think you've identified the solution. The engage of paid content needs to be an all or nothing approach. Any publisher that is ad-driven could be held just as liable for re-distributing media content. Media reseller accounts would shift the balance of power back and place a premium on credible, high quality journalism. Media should be thoroughly commoditized.

Hippy · 3 months ago

Information wants to be free.

NY Ad Guy · 3 months ago

First of all, I believe that Bob Garfield is on staff at AdAge, not a "contributor." And the basis for his book was a long front page feature that originally appeared in, you guessed it, AdAge.

Secondly, your little editorial at the end of the article makes no sense. "Free content has been free since the TV was invented," you say. I guess you've never heard of "pay TV," better known as Cable TV? Most American's pay for their TV content. And, soon, most will pay for their Internet content, too.

As for Goodby's comment, that people will read advertising that's relevant to them -- that may be true. But in Garfield's defense, the premise behind his book is that most sites on the Internet don't deliver the audience that a mass market hit on TV broadcast does (say, the Superbowl). And if TV and other forms of mass market advertising die before Internet media are capable of replacing that audience, the overall impact on the ad industry could be disastrous, as marketers simply won't be willing to spend the same dollars to chase fewer eyeballs. (After all, not every campaign can go "viral," to use a well-worn online advertising cliché.)