Business models for multi-media journalism
Are the best things in life free? Can you really get something for nothing these days?
Or as Mark Knopfler told us we can get our money for nothing and chicks for free?
I do not know about chicks, but I like the concept of accessing free information on the internet.
Should we be able to jump on the internet at any time and keep with the breaking news without paying a cent?
Today we take this for granted. Why pay when you can access news sites like news.com.au or the ABC news page.
We take it as a basic human right to be able to keep with what is happening locally and around the world.
TV news has set program times, whereas the internet is 24 hours a day access.
With this expectance of free access, how is it possible to pay for these stories and keep the website going?
Of course, there can be advertising on these pages.
It can be in the form of ads on your webpage to create revenue.
On the other side of the coin, you can even pay Google to advertise your web address on other webpages using Adwords, to drive traffic to your page. Adwords can even push you higher up the search engine results.
More traffic to your website makes it a more appealing choice to advertise on.
But where does this money come from to pay for products like Adwords?
Should subscriptions to websites be instigated? Would this discriminate against people who could not afford to pay but want the information?
We watch free to air television and listen to the radio without paying, so why should we have to pay to view the stories on the internet? Even though we pay to read newspapers?
Websites such as Facebook offer free access to their webpage. Once you sign up and start using the website you are targeted by advertisements.
How else would this webpage make any money and keep on running?
Image taken from Facebook, from my homepage. Image shows advertising on this page.
It is a juggling act. How much do we sell to cover costs? How much do we spend to create the revenue to cover the costs?
Webpages such as paidContent (sic) claim that we heading towards a digital only media future.
They have designed business models to help us survive and thrive.
As technology changes, I hope that journalism can survive and thrive as a free medium that everyone can access.
