Interesting stuff from Vin Crosbie (when does Vin ever write something that isn’t interesting and insightful?) on paid content:
People would be willing to pay a subscription fee for a service that delivers news to them online; but not for a service that doesn’t exactly meet their needs and interests, that sends exactly the same package of news to everyone. Paid content isn’t dead; just payment for the traditional ‘one-to-many’ package of content is.
While it isn’t necessarily wise to base business decisions on individual experience, I can’t imagine ever paying for a customized news service. I can’t keep up with all the free content I should keep up with now. That said, I wouldn’t want a service that whittled it down for me, cause I think I’ve whittled it down for myself as much as can be done intelligently.
But maybe more general news consumers would in fact appreciate such a service.
Can an existing media company provide it?
And read what Vin says about a major weakness of newspapers as a general interest product in the age of niche interests — hint, just duplicating it online is a bad strategy (like I said before).
