Rupert Murdoch wants you to pay for online content.

[jackson_34]

So News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch wants to implement charging fees to users to view any content on his news websites (similar to his wall street journal online) before the end of the financial year (though this may be delayed). Apparently he is not too happy with companies like google and Microsoft displaying the news story headlines and first paragraphs as he believes it breaks the doctrine of 'fair use'. He even stated that he wanted to remove his news content from searches like google.

So do you agree with Murdoch's stance that we should be paying for online news content? Or is he putting News Corp at risk of alienation from the readers?

Most other outlets are quite happy for their content to remain free and displayed on search engines since they still receive ad revenue.

I think in the end it really just boils down to this;

[PosImpos]

The vast majority of people who see that stuff aren't willing to pay for it; at least, I know I'm not willing to play for the majority of the info I get free on the internet.

There are more than enough ways to make money and get exposure on the internet without charging.  Companies and websites that feel they need to charge people for extra content etc. are just limiting themselves because their website will get less exposure.

We're increasingly living in a digital culture where stuff that cost money before can be had quite easily for free over the Internet.  Companies need to learn how to adapt to the new age, not try to slow it down or hold it back with old techniques.

[Roy Hobbs]

It doesn't really surprise me, although I think there's going to be a lot of resistance to it.  If he ever went to completely subscriber content, I think you'd see Newscorp lose market share to those sites that continued to be free.  The only way that this works is if all the major news sites do something similar.

That being said, I think it's possible to charge for selected subscriber content.  Look at the case of ESPN, which seems to be moving along fine with Insider.

[jackson_34]

It doesn't really surprise me, although I think there's going to be a lot of resistance to it.  If he ever went to completely subscriber content, I think you'd see Newscorp lose market share to those sites that continued to be free.  The only way that this works is if all the major news sites do something similar.

That being said, I think it's possible to charge for selected subscriber content.  Look at the case of ESPN, which seems to be moving along fine with Insider.

Insiders is more opinion than news though, I guess if you had the editorial columns or something like that it could work...

The Boss of the ABC here in Aus said that this decision by Murdoch is from "An Empire in Decline". And he's probably right. Newspapers are no doubt going to fade away in the next few decades. TV is becoming less important as the content can easily be located on the internet with websites such as hulu and the network sites themselves. I think Murdoch acknowledges this and is looking to find a way to maintain the profits possible throught TV and Print, but it's just not possible in the networking age that has already started.

[Roy Hobbs]

It doesn't really surprise me, although I think there's going to be a lot of resistance to it.  If he ever went to completely subscriber content, I think you'd see Newscorp lose market share to those sites that continued to be free.  The only way that this works is if all the major news sites do something similar.

That being said, I think it's possible to charge for selected subscriber content.  Look at the case of ESPN, which seems to be moving along fine with Insider.

Insiders is more opinion than news though, I guess if you had the editorial columns or something like that it could work...

The Boss of the ABC here in Aus said that this decision by Murdoch is from "An Empire in Decline". And he's probably right. Newspapers are no doubt going to fade away in the next few decades. TV is becoming less important as the content can easily be located on the internet with websites such as hulu and the network sites themselves. I think Murdoch acknowledges this and is looking to find a way to maintain the profits possible throught TV and Print, but it's just not possible in the networking age that has already started.

Yeah, I understand if FoxNews wants to charge for access to O'Reilly's page or something.  However, if Fox wants to charge me to visit their page for news, I'll simply click over to CNN.  (Actually, I generally start at CNN first anyway.)