Marcel Weiss's Library tagged micropayments → View Popular

21 May 09

But here’s the killer: When content is hidden, it cannot be found via search (not to mention bloggers’ and aggregators’ links). In a link and search economy, content gains value only through these recommendations; an article without links has no readers and thus no value. The real cost of charging for content—and it’s a cost born by the content owner—is a loss of Googlejuice.
As for Google: Its detractors have the value proposition exactly backwards. Google shouldn’t be paying newspapers. Newspapers should be grateful that Google doesn’t charge them for the value it shares in links and audience. Google is their generous, free newsstand.

16 May 09

21 Feb 09

10 Feb 09

Right now, Apple doesn't make money on iTunes, but it loves the service because it has helped the company sell nearly 200 million iPods and some 13 million iPhones to date. Apple would be interested in developing an iNews service only if it would move more iPods (or a new tablet version, rumored to be in the works). Given the newspaper industry's track record of convincing readers to pay up, it's doubtful newspapers would be attractive enough to lure in new Apple customers. (By most estimates Amazon has sold only 500,000 Kindles since its launch, hardly a number to brag about.) The sad fact is that journalism and books, while culturally invaluable, don't have the consumer demand that music and videos do. "The only places nickel and dimes work—ring tones, music and in-game currency—is when there's an end-to-end monopoly," notes Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor of new media at NYU and an early micropayment critic.

But the monopoly newspapers once commanded has been obliterated by the Internet. How would a newspaper that adopted a micropayment system compete with outlets that remained free? If the Times went behind a micropayment pay-wall, couldn't the Washington Post undercut them and attract a lot of readers seeking free, quality news?