Monthly Archives: March 2010

The news that The Times is going to charge £1 for a day and £2 for a week’s access to its website is not exactly surprising, but the pricing is. The Wall Street Journal is looking to charge $17.99 per month for access on an iPad which contrasts with the current $1.50 per week model on the iPhone. We can expect more content on the iPad version, but still the pricing is at odds with the structure we have been used to for the past few years. The web is free and has always been seen that way; newspapers use the web to promote their brand in the hope of selling more newspapers, websites rely on advertising to make the enterprise profitable and the corporate use the web as an online home for their company and to sell products direct.

The idea of paying to read a mainstream website will be alien to most people and it will be a difficult sell to get the idea off the ground. However, if all of the mainstream press does it together then the idea could game momentum. Another however, the Guardian already sells a complete iPhone app which encompasses a great deal of its daily content, so how can it turn its back on a product which it has already sold to thousands of people? Are these newspapers going to shut down their normal websites to everyone who does not pay and thus reduce their online circulation? Circulation is the most important word in the newspaper industry and will undoubtedly take a knock in the first few months of paid online content. Or will it? There must be a business theory behind the process or are they just jumping on the bandwagon because everyone else is doing it?

I can’t help but consider the early days of the music industry and how the majority considered that paying for a music track you could not touch and feel was ridiculous. Fast forward a few years and it is commonplace- I for one never buy CDs anymore and always get my music electronically. The problem for the press is that we did not have a period of free music online (legally) for years before the commercial MP3 music empire was created and so that industry started from scratch. Newspapers and large media outlets have had to use online avenues to increase their profitability, but if anything it works the opposite way. Similar to the music scenario, I have not bought a newspaper in over 2 years; I can get most of the news I need online for free and if I want the ‘experience’, the Guardian app is an example of a model which works well for me. However, would I pay £2 a week to access the Guardian content? At this moment the answer is no, but if I was forced into a position where the good news commentary was not available I would have to think again.

The problem is that there will not come a time when good news commentary will not be available for free. The web has given too many people a voice for the big players to be able to charge for their content and to have no competition. Rivals will pop up who use the traditional model of advertising and these companies will not have the baggage of a paper news business to content with, and thus greatly reduced costs. News will still be free and all it will require is a change of mindset from enough individuals to stop reading the big newspapers. As the industry moves online, the whole reason people stick to a particular newspaper will disappear. Sentimentality is not common on the web and once the furore of online newspapers is over, we will return to where we are now.

Some people will always pay for good content, but I suspect not enough to feed all of the newspapers we can read today. They will need to streamline and decide if paper or pixel is the way forward. I cannot see a point where paper will disappear, but I also cannot see enough people adopting a subscription method for digital content. So, what I am saying is that I cannot see how this will develop, but I do hope others in the industry can.

Lots of online column inches have been devoted to the email responses of the big boys in the smartphone market recently and they make for fascinating reading.

A MacRumors reader emailed Steve Jobs directly about concerns about how long he’s had to wait for the new MacBook Pro updates and Apple’s recent focus on the iPad. He wrote “I recognise the need for secrecy etc but I am really losing heart in the lack of vision for the MBP and Mac Pros. Not expecting a response but as someone who has personally switched dozens of people onto the mac way this is a sad email for me to compose.”

Steve Jobs reportedly responded with a short reply that simply said “Not to worry.”

Am I the only one who thinks this reply is plain rude? This is a customer emailing the most senior person at a company he is obviously passionate about and to receive a reply like that is bizarre. Imagine what would happen if a customer service rep did that. Some have defended the reply as being positive and suggesting that movement is happening with the MacBook Pros, but that does not excuse the way the email was dealth with. That is presuming the email concversation was true in the first place…

Jon Rubinstein received an email advising him to look at this home made webOS advert because he felt it was better than the official ones from Palm. The response from Jon read “You should buy a Pre plus because it is the best smartphone on the market. Try it, you’ll like it!!!”

Well, thanks Jon. That really got to the heart of the matter didn’t it.

Jezper Soderlund from Slashat.se asked Steve Jobs the following- “”I’m also awaiting the release of the iPad. However, I have one question: Will the wifi-only version somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?”

The email reply was ‘No.”

That’s it. Nothing else, just one word.

Admittedly I am a bit picky when it comes to emails and try to respond to every one I receive, but just because an individual is head of a company, that should not mean they can be so dismissive of good etiquette. Indeed, it should be the opposite. For balance I did try to find some bad ones from Steve Ballmer etc., but came up short. For a nerdy report on email behaviour, check out this PDF.