Think of this as Volume 17, Number 16 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.
Throughout the Web, the information
with the highest cost and lowest return is news.
For me to appear at an event in person,
I have to get dressed, get there, stay there, and get back home. It's
a full day production. It keeps me from doing anything else.
The problem is that all this effort
doesn't bring me any more page views than I'd get from just picking
the story off the wire and commenting on it. Less, because I'm not a
major news player.
The problem I face is exponentially
greater for the major news player. Everyone links to the first person
with the story, sometimes with credit but more often not, and the
number of page views the first-mover gets may be relatively small.
This isn't all bad. Often, the best story is the one that is
well-considered, that brings in other facts, that's researched with
links and thought through before it's published.
As a result, news sites have been
engaged in a growing game I call hide the pickle.
The most obvious way to do this is with
a paywall. You keep anyone who isn't giving you cash from getting
access to the story. There is a heritage of this, in the business
trades. Publishers required “qual cards” from most subscribers,
proving they were part of the industry. This meant there was no
wasted circulation for advertisers.
But this hasn't worked well in
practice.
DailyVariety tried to keep people from getting access to
its stuff unless they paid or were qualified as members of the
entertainment industry. The result was a gradual circling of the
drain, until the company was sold off to a rival, Deadline Hollywood , for just $25 million. Deadline Hollywood doesn't hide behind a paywall.
The biggest controversy in the paywall
business is the move of daily newspapers, en masse, to the paywall
concept. These are not absolute paywalls. They're “metered” –
offering some free access, a certain number of stories per month.
Some sections are actually pushed in front of the paywall, like the
Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD, whose editors are now entertaining
bids for renewing their affiliation contract.
Forced registration can push down page
views as effectively as a paywall. I have found this recently at
Seeking Alpha, a site I began writing for 2 years ago. They have
erected a forced registration wall when new readers try to reach the
second page on a story, even my stories, and most walk away. My own
page views have been cut in half, and thus my intention toward
supplying them with good copy has also been cut in half.
But most metro dailies, which are dying
otherwise, are moving to paywalls even though, as even their
advocates note, they're only buying a few years of life from the
technique. The Washington Post started the rush, encouraged by
stories claiming The New York Times was on its way to financial
success with its metered paywall. Other papers, like the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, are rushing to follow. One paper, the Orange
County Register, is even trying to erect its pay wall in conjunction
with a sports team, the LA Angels. (Why don't the Angels just buy the
paper, then?)
I've written about these paywalls many
times, and wrote about them again at TheStreet.com recently. You're cutting off your circulation for cash, which means your
advertising is worth less, I wrote. Even one of those who criticized
my handling of the story, however, admitted to me privately it's not
a long-term solution.
Rather than having a paywall, I have
suggested a succession of up-sells. Let anyone come into your site,
let them come all they want. But offer them something special for
registering and taking your cookies, and for filling our your reader
surveys. Then start adding paid tiers, specialty sections sent via
e-mail, interviews with writers, editors and other newsmakers, even
targeted discounts created in conjunction with local businesses. An
Eater's Club to sponsor the restaurant reviews, an Entertainment Club
to sponsor the entertainment section, etc. etc. etc.
The aim of the registration wall is to
build a database proving to advertisers you're hitting the target.
The aim of the special clubs is to give advertisers customers, which
is the aim of advertising, and to sustain the rest of the effort as,
in essence, advertising for the paid tier.
The stupidity of the media in this area
spells particular problems for journalists, however. You want to link
to other people covering a story you're wriging in order to
substantiate your facts, but what if the story is behind a paywall?
You can wait for someone who has been behind the paywall to write
something and link to that. But I've found many editors don't like
those links – they're second-hand.
Increasingly, even those sites that are
getting their news second-hand are playing this game. Rather than
link to the source of a story, they'll link to other locations within
the site, in which the story was hinted at. If you follow those
links, looking for the story, you wind up in a cul de sac. This
stupidity goes beyond those faux links that you mouse over and get
ads on, or that actually lead to ads. Don't turn your site into a
roach motel.
Google, which tried at first to deal
with this on Google News by noting when you were heading to a
registration wall or paywall, has been rendered impotent on this
through legal objections raised by the papers. They want the links,
but they don't want the links to carry any information, and then they
think they're going to get people who click on a link to pay for
access to the site? This is insanity. Yet this is the situation that
increasingly prevails, in 2013.
It can't go on.
The aim of the Web is to spread
knowledge, not hide it. Too many publishers are trying too hard to
hide it behind paywalls, behind registration walls, or with games
involving fake links. They're doing it, they say, because they want
to be paid for the time their writers take actually covering things.
But there are better ways to get that
money. The game of hide the pickle is the last gasp of a dying
industry. What emerges in its stead will be born of the Web, and
entirely of the Web. More Deadline Hollywood, less Daily Variety. It
has taken almost 20 years to reach this point, and I'm sorry the old
industry won't be along for the ride, but that's just business
evolution in action.
