Will relationship building cost newspapers too much?
The New York Times is giving pay wall skeptics reason to reconsider their skepticism. Despite questions about the company's paywall strategy, the daily has managed to lure some 325,000 paying subscribers.
That's good news for a newspaper that some believed might not survive.
Six things to learn from the Louis CK experiment
Can a prominent comedian shake up the comedy business by producing his own event and selling it to consumers online in digital format DRM-free? Thanks to Louis CK's experiment, we now know the answer is yes.
More than 100,000 comedy fans have snapped up 'Louis CK: Live at the Beacon Theater' for $5, earning the comedian a healthy profit and sparking a discussion about digital content, business models and pricing.
Here's what you can learn from Louis CK's experiment.
Netflix enters the U.K. and Ireland as it stumbles in the U.S.
Yesterday, Netflix announced that its aggressive international expansion plans will bring its internet movie and television streaming service to the U.K. and Ireland in early 2012.
The announcement should have been a bright spot for a company which has been flying high for the past several years. But it was overshadowed by a bout of bad news: last quarter, Netflix lost 800,000 subscribers in the U.S.
Publisher tablet revenue growing more meaningful
Investing millions to launch an iPad-only publication may prove to be one of the best ways of making a small fortune from a large fortune, but for traditional publishers that have been hawking their wares on the iPad, Kindle and NOOK, tablets are starting to have an impact.
That's according to two executives from Condé Nast and Hearst who took part in a panel at the American Magazine Conference.
Both indicated that their companies are close to achieving $10m in revenue from tablets.
The Daily's iPad-only strategy isn't working
Earlier this year, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. announced that it was making a significant bet on tablet devices.
The bet: that an iPad-only news publication could launch and thrive at a time when many established news publications were struggling to survive.
"New times demand new journalism," Murdoch proclaimed. And with eight figures in investment in The Daily, he stated confidently, "we believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told and consumed in this digital age".
Half a year later, however, The Daily appears to be off to a slower start than Murdoch may have anticipated.
Q&A: Tomas Bella of Piano Media on the paywall that's working
While many publishers in the West struggle to build profitable paywalls, I recently reported that a paywall in the East may provide a blueprint for success.
That paywall was erected in Slovakia by a company called Piano Media. It brought together nine of Slovakia's largest news publishers, and the early results are impressive given the size and characteristics of the Slovakian market.
Should publishers sell tablets?
When Apple announced the iPad, many executives in the publishing industry voiced high hopes for the tablet device. "This could be the technology that helps us capitalize on digital," they effectively said in one way or another.
Of course, today we know that the iPad isn't a panacea for traditional publishers. That, of course, doesn't mean that tablet devices aren't important to them, or that they should abandon all hope.
But how much hope is too much hope?
Does Slovakia hold the secret to paywall success?
Here's a question most publishers would love to have an answer to: what's the secret to building a successful pay wall?
Although one might expect major publishers like the New York Times to eventually provide the answer, newspapers in Slovakia may have beat their Western counterparts to the task.
Can ad-supported hardware trump ad-supported content?
When it comes to online content, consumers by and large prefer to pay for it in attention rather than currency. As a result, it's no surprise that far more publishers have built successful ad-based business models than paid content business models.
Advertising, of course, usually isn't a path to easy money for publishers. Yes, advertisers love the internet, but digital still accounts for a minority of total ad spending, and advertisers generally pay less for digital ads than traditional ads.
Five big mistakes made by publishers
Publishing may be a tough business all around these days, but thanks to the internet, there are more publishers than ever.
Many of them won't survive, of course. And the ones that die won't just be traditional publishers that fail to adapt to the internet; there are plenty of digital publishers making potentially fatal mistakes too.
