News organizations looking to charge for their content online should avoid making the mistakes of their predecessors, Wall Street Journal Online executive editor Alan Murray told the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard.
The Journal is one of the few newspapers that has had success putting much of their content behind a pay wall. In an interview posted at the Lab's web site, niemanlab.org, Murray said many common assumptions about charging don't hold up. Newspapers should build a mix of free and paid content to reach the broad audience advertisers will pay to access while also generating subscription revenue, he said.
Targeting specific niches with in-depth coverage can be a better way to generate revenue than simply putting current news products behind a pay wall, he said. The Journal is working on a number of "premium initiatives" to sell narrow content products to specific audiences, such as people interested in the energy business.
The revealing interview can be found here.
Two other excerpts from the Lab's interview with Murray are available at:
http://www.niemanlab.org/tag/alan-murray/
Sunday, April 19, 2009
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