The debate about media company charging for online content continues.
In Australia, as reported here, a report from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers reveals that people would pay for news, sport, weather and finance.
Finance, sport and weather might be okay. But with news, I suspect it's still problematic with so much free content around. Indeed, free content is increasing and easier to find as filters like Google and Technorati are built to sort through and target relevant links. The barriers to free content are coming down. If you want anyone to pay for news, you would have to make it a unique and compelling proposition and give people a reason to want to buy it.
Still, that might change with a new report from the European Union, reported here, saying that young people are more prepared to pay for content online than their older counterparts. However, that report seems to be more relevant to music, not news.
So what do we make of this? Simply that people might pay for content but it depends on what the content gives them. And there are five reasons why they would pay for content.
According to this report, people will pay for content if it helps them make money (like stock information), if it saves them money, if it specialized and hard to find anywhere else (e.g. highly specific research), if it helps them use other products (as in software or for online multi-player games) or if it's enhanced and repackaged with added value.
If the content doesn't have any of that, you can forget it. You are not even in the race.
no comment untill now