Using old ways to combat new problems
While my time spent in the corporate world is limited I would have to say that while Rupert Murdoch might be a genius in the world of business I think he is fighting a losing battle. For those who haven’t read the article above Robert Murdoch is an Australian born newspaper Mogul who started out in his homeland of Australia and has since spread to the UK and America. He is in the news recently for saying that to save newspapers and generate revenue they need to stop giving content away for free and to start charging.
While I don’t try to be an authority on the subject of marketing, business or even newspapers, I can’t see how charging for something that other various sites, not newspaper related, offer it for free. If newspaper sites start charging to read their articles people will just move on. While I agree that newspapers should be saved somehow I don’t see charging people to read their articles the answer. I think that ads could be an option but supposedly they aren’t making enough that way. One option that I don’t know if it would work or if they have tried it could be to become purely online. That way you don’t have the cost of printing. I realize that this also cuts out a major part of their revenue, but they could start charging for other things.
Aside from cutting out the actual printing of newspapers they could offer some sort of service that if you paid would deliver news about given topics directly to you a personalized part of their site. I see it as kind of like combining the personal page aspect of facebook and other social networking sites while getting the articles of people’s favorite newspapers. This also could let people comment on various stories which is something I have noticed is quite a trend.
I think it would a shame to see newspapers go away all together but I think in the direction our society is headed its inevitable. While I might have misunderstood Murdoch’s comments, I don’t think I did. I think that they need to comeup with some way of delivering news to people in the way that most people have become accustomed, free. But like I said earlier, I am just in Grad school and have yet to enter the “real world” what do you guys think. Do you think the future of newspapers online is to charge their customers to read their articles?
