Clicks may save the news media
Source: Agencies |
September 5, 2010, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WIKIPEDIA founder Jimmy Wales believes relief may be in sight for the beleaguered news media industry.
The increasing use of the mobile Internet and for-pay apps that run on smart phones and other gadgets might give news providers what they've been searching for: a way to charge for digital content, Wales said.
As founder of one of the world's most popular websites, the 44-year-old American is a key Internet entrepreneur.
"The apps model -- the iPad app, the Kindle -- does provide new and interesting opportunities for newspapers," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of business and political leaders on the shores of Italy's Lake Como.
"If I just click on my iPad, and it's billed on my normal bill, that micropayment model makes it possible for people to have an impulse purchase," he said.
Publishers have been charging subscriptions for content on Kindle e-readers with many experimenting with a system that lets people download an app, then pay for each new issue.
Some media companies have discussed using a micropayment system instead, where readers pay a few cents when they click on an article.
Wales believes both models can work, but expects subscriptions to remain more popular.
"I'm not going to pull out my credit card out of my wallet," he said. "It's way too much trouble, but if I have a way of just clicking and I get it and I pay a little, it's worth it."
Media companies may be focused on digital strategies, but Wales said he expects newsprint and books to survive longer than some predict.
"Print is a pretty amazing technology, really. It's very cheap, lightweight, disposable, batteries don't go dead," Wales said, adding that he was taking a book to the beach because an e-reader would be destroyed by the sand.
The increasing use of the mobile Internet and for-pay apps that run on smart phones and other gadgets might give news providers what they've been searching for: a way to charge for digital content, Wales said.
As founder of one of the world's most popular websites, the 44-year-old American is a key Internet entrepreneur.
"The apps model -- the iPad app, the Kindle -- does provide new and interesting opportunities for newspapers," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum, a gathering of business and political leaders on the shores of Italy's Lake Como.
"If I just click on my iPad, and it's billed on my normal bill, that micropayment model makes it possible for people to have an impulse purchase," he said.
Publishers have been charging subscriptions for content on Kindle e-readers with many experimenting with a system that lets people download an app, then pay for each new issue.
Some media companies have discussed using a micropayment system instead, where readers pay a few cents when they click on an article.
Wales believes both models can work, but expects subscriptions to remain more popular.
"I'm not going to pull out my credit card out of my wallet," he said. "It's way too much trouble, but if I have a way of just clicking and I get it and I pay a little, it's worth it."
Media companies may be focused on digital strategies, but Wales said he expects newsprint and books to survive longer than some predict.
"Print is a pretty amazing technology, really. It's very cheap, lightweight, disposable, batteries don't go dead," Wales said, adding that he was taking a book to the beach because an e-reader would be destroyed by the sand.
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