Online news will become paid for within a year

[MAGNeT]

FT predicts

Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has predicted that "almost all" news organisations will be charging for online content within a year. Barber claims that building online platforms that could charge readers on an article-by-article or subscription basis was one of the key challenges facing news organisations.

Speaking to a Media Standards Trust event at the British Academy, Barber confidently predicted that within the next 12 months, almost all news organisations will be charging for content. He is not the only one who thinks that ordinary newspapers will have to start charging. Rupert Murdoch said in May that he expected his News Corporation newspaper websites to start charging for access within a year. The New York Times, could begin charging for online news within the next three to four weeks. The Financial Times website, FT.com, has more than 1.3 million non-paying registered users worldwide, with another 110,000 paying subscribers.

Barber said there was a difference between "crafted" journalism and blogs "largely based on opinion rather than established fact becoming increasingly influential. He said that bloggers have broken important stories and will continue to do so. However they do not operate according to the same standards as those who aspire to and practice crafted journalism.

In America we guess that means long boring articles about the journalist with the news buried in the 16th paragraph. Barber claimed that bloggers were happy to report rumour as fact, arguing that readers or fellow networkers can step in to correct those "facts" if they turn out to be wrong.

At Fudzilla we have no plans to charge for news in the next year so we think Barber might be a bit wrong on this one.

Fudzilla - Online news will be come paid for within a year

 

[uziel]

this will really be sad..... te purpose of internet will fail

 

[Stuge]

hmm this this will push us to read paper really !

not only TE ,Internet without news is dumb !

 

[=CrAzYG33K=]

They said the newspaper would be dead when the radio came out.

They said the radio would be dead when the television came out.

Their main theory was people wouldn't pay for news (as in 'buying newspapers') when they were aired for free on TVs/radios..

Newspapers still kick butt.

Same old. Same old.

 

[thetoxicmind]

And to wonder what will happen to the portals that have news sections.

Not likely to happen imho.

 

[amol_cool]

This just can't happen! Not at least IMO

 

[Shripad]

Television, specially cable and colour television actually did kill Radio in our country. its the next gen FM stations that learnt from the mistakes of past and adapted to the newer audience that again started radio age here.

Newspaper is preferred only because its a cheap physical medium that you can read even when you are sitting on toilet

Charging for online content is risky move. They must atleast have dirt cheap monthly plans which costs less than actual newspaper and then only it will become a success.

Honestly, these days I rely heavily on electronic news. I subscribe to RSS feeds on my mobile and read them while travelling or when I am outside. I will be ready to pay for the proper enews content, but it needs to be cheap like newspaper.