When beleaguered executives from top newspaper firms met at a Chicago airfield hotel in late May, they made a decision they needed a savior – that is, a tech company to help them work out ways to earn income online . Letters inviting solutions went out to 10 firms, and in July the responses discreetly rolled in. Google’s offer accidentally showed up online Sept. 9, sparking a sea of media reports about Google’s plan to save papers.
But what of the other corporations that gave ideas, starting from established powers in the tech world like IBM and Microsoft to such up-and-comers as YouData and Journalism Online?
‘There’s definitely a potential for one of these companies to become the hottest and reign over the field, and that is’s particularly true if their technology and business structure envisions some a multisite pass,’ announces Rich Gordon, director of digital innovation at the Medill faculty of Journalism.
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Google has an advantage over the other contenders since it already has the technology available. Google’s latest proposal entails expanded use of its Checkout product, which now lets users shop across the Web but sign in in one place. Its newspaper platform would include an identical single sign-on where users could examine content from different paperspapers for one price .
But Google’s relationship with newspapers is a bit stressed, generally thanks to the way Google stories currently distributes paper content – effectively diverting readers away from individual news sites by allowing them to scan headlines and story shorts without leaving Google. [**] on Sept. 16, Google attempted to mend fences with newspapers by launching Fast Flip, a hot news heart that allows readers to scan thru participating paperspapers, but gives those papers a share of the income from advertisements placed around the site.
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Another offer comes from Journalism Online, a pay-for-news company whose founders include Steven Brill, the previous editor of Content, and L. Gordon Crovitz, a former publisher of the wall street journal. The organization’s proposal would offer an outlet for reports from many providers, but would allow them to pick which parts of their content should go behind a pay wall and how much to charge. Unlike Google , however , Journalism Online’s platform remains under development. Another offer from MyWire’s global stories Service, owned by Louis Borders ( the founder of Borders Books ), would also organize content from participating papers behind a pay wall, but it uses existing technology.
Microsoft, the other big-time company that, like Google, already has the technology available to implement a pay wall, also suggests aggregating information from many news sources in one pay-to-play location. The firm’s offer emphasizes user preferences and aims to make the content accessible from any device, both on- and off-line. Yahoo is alleged to be readying a concept also but hasn’t yet given any details.
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So who will win? Randy Coats, VP of interactive for Scripps Howard papers, will make the decision for his thirteen papers. He believes that tech corporations that base their suggestions on existing tools stand the best chance ; Google is the favourite, he adds, due to its proven history in monetizing online content. ‘This is far too important for us to be trusting vaporware.’
It is hard to tell what payoff would go to the winning technology supplier, says Gordon, neither is it even known who would own the content. There is also the issue of whether the assorted pay-for-content concepts would fly with clients. Google chairperson Eric Schmidt latterly told Brit broadcasting executives that charging for online content won’t work apart from niche and specialist markets. Consumer surveys tend to support those doubts. A Belden Interactive survey released in mid-September discovered that PC users who said they’d pay for stories online would shell out a median of only $4.64 a month, while 47% of the group surveyed asserted they would not pay anything.