The Newsonomics of Overnight Digital Customers

That’s right. You’re no longer a “user”, a hateful term if ever one were invented, or a “visitor,” or a brother from another digital planet. Overnight, you’re a customer again. In this psychology, a news company has put a value on what it produces. You, the customer, now are being shown that ...

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The New HuffPo-AOL Combo: The Free, Anti-Murdoch Alternative?

Ah, but what kind of new face will AOL/HuffPost's be? It could be, simply, the anti-Murdoch. Sure, The Daily is "centrist," whatever that means in the world of 2011, but the right-leaning proclivities of Murdoch Media are clear. MSNBC has tiptoed into position, leaning forward gingerly, but ...

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Paywalls, Patch, Public Media & Pointcast Memories: 11 Conventional News Wisdoms We’ll Test in 2011

Conventional Wisdom #1) Readers won't pay for non-business content. Yes, we know that readers will pay for the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, and that Consumer Reports, which helps us save money, counts more digital subs than anyone else. While some smaller dailies have begun to ...

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Reuters America Claims New Territory; First Stop, Chicago & Tribune

Still, it will be an intriguing test. Beyond the immediate test, we're seeing how flexible news content delivery is getting to be. Demand Media is selling content to USA Today and Hearst papers, while Reuters and Tribune buddy up to Examiner. Mix and match is the order of the day and ...

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Big Is Better, Chapter 144

Big is better. Ideas are great, but capital means the ability to acquire, to build and to sustain a business through harder times.

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The Newsonomics of Journalist Headcounts

So let’s look broadly at those numbers. Count them all up — and undoubtedly, numerous ones are missing — and you’ve got something more than 65,000 journalists, working for brands of one kind or another.

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Murdoch’s London Pay Wall May Be Dead-End

On the numbers: It looks like 50,000 customers have paid a monthly price for ongoing subscriptions, according to the preliminary data. That's a quarter percent of its pre-wall uniques, suggesting two huge problems: 1) Reader revenue runs at only $10 million a year, so far, a pittance, and quite ...

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The Newsonomics of The Third Leg

Let's consider the new Associated Press-lead push for an industry-wide "rights consortium." While its daily newspapers try to stand taller on the two legs of digital ad and reader revenue, the business that could emerge from this new company is about syndication. In that sense, it could be a ...

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9 Questions: Zell’s Clown Car, The New “100,” Tablets & Print Circ & Daughter of Alesia

Will the cats of newspaper industry be successfully herded? After pouring millions into his Alesia project, Rupert Murdoch gave the retreat order to his would-be Roman warriors, killing the tablet-oriented paid news portal initiative. Though his News Corp is the biggest news company in the ...

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Bill Keller on the Liberal New York Times….and More

It's a tough dance, and one that conservatives love to watch. I'm struck by how different the dance is in the UK, another English-speaking country with a fairly decent history of democracy and free press. There, the Guardian -- which is now getting a global profile for its work, courtesy of its ...

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