Take It Face To Face

Newspaper giant Rupert Murdoch has been talking publicly this week about his beliefs that other publications will need to follow his lead in charging for web content if they want to stay afloat. This is obviously not what readers want to hear.

There’s something very psychological and also rather arbitrary about which content American consumers are and are not willing to pay for. Historically it’s been understood that because time, money and effort must go into developing and distributing content, it’s necessary to reimburse the creator.

And for many products, consumers still think this way. We expect to pay to read a hard copy of the newspaper, book or magazine. We expect to pay a ticket price for concerts and films, or the cable bill if we want to access more diverse and high quality television programming.

But with the advent of the internet, this logical model has been shattered. Many corporations and publications began offering free content over the internet long before they had a real grasp of the implications of such a decision.

Charging for internet access to newspaper content is not unreasonable. The papers need to be reimbursed for their efforts, and the advertising revenue simply isn’t doing the job.

But after upwards of ten years of paying nothing, consumers have an often subconscious expectation that it will remain this way. The job of the newspapers that are simply trying to stay afloat is not an enviable one. It will hard, if not impossible, to undo this mode of thinking.

Think about Napster for a moment. When it first came about, users flocked to the program as a way for acquiring music content for free. After it got slammed with multiple lawsuits, the site had no choice but to start charging for these songs.

And then it fell off the map. The monumental success of ITunes demonstrates that consumers are willing, in theory, to pay for music content. But they are not going to do so from any place whose name has for so long been synonymous with “free”.

Could the newspapers ever pull it off? Some argue that users will find another place to go for free content. But unlike Napster and ITunes, there’s no guarantee of comparable content when you jump from the New York Times to some no-name small town post.

I have some degree of hope. After all, Sirius and XM (now merged) pulled it off. They got radio users to pay for content they essentially already had access to for free simply by making it better.

If the newspapers think outside the box and find an original way to reprove to their readers that their stories are worth paying for, I think things will work out just fine.

What are your feelings about newspapers charging for online content? Do consumers have any entitlement to continue to receive it for free? Tell us your thoughts.

How many distinct uses are there for Twitter?

On the most basic level, you can keep tabs on your friends, stalk celebrities, and read up on blogs and news feeds of interest.

But beyond these most common utilities, Twitter can serve as a tool for connecting with others with similar interests. The day after I wrote a post debating whether to enroll in a Gay and Lesbian Documentary course, “LogoChannel” (whose biography describes it as “a television channel for the LGBT community), began following my tweets. Side note: Though I did enroll in the class, I must say that the content of my posts has likely been disappointingly irrelevant since.

Beyond personal ventures, however, Twitter has inevitably evolved into a powerful direct marketing tool. Case in point: last week, my coworker Anthony tweeted that he was, “hanging shelves tonight.” Shortly thereafter, he received a direct reply from another Twitter account stating, “dont forget to use [brand name] anchor to hang up your friends shelf. Go to [company’s web address] use coupon code twitter1 for 10% off.”

Well, there you have it. Who can be more effectively convinced to buy shelf hanging products (at a discount, no less!) than a person who has just admitted they’ll be performing that very activity in the near future? Probably no one.

A glance at the latest string of tweets from this user demonstrates that the account exists for the sole purpose of direct marketing. And because a Twitter account is free, this targeted coupon distribution costs only the manpower (or computer program power, as the case may be) to hunt down these relevant entries and fire a pre-written pitch in their direction.

The effectiveness of this technique, in both cost and reach, will likely lead to its widespread promulgation. As of now, a user’s only real defense against such marketers is to make their updates private. Doing so, however, has the simultaneous effect of cutting off much of Twitter’s utility as a networking service. What is the unhappily targeted consumer to do?

After its initial growth spurt, Facebook began a policy of forcibly shutting down fictional profiles, particularly those created in the name of celebrities and fictional characters (though this did have the unfortunate side effect of barring from the site all the real life Yodas and Batmans of the world). Perhaps a policy of monitoring Twitter accounts for similar dissenters is not far off.

As a consumer, do you find this marketing approach desirable because of the relevant discount offers that it’s likely to include, or is it just pesky and intrusive? How would you feel if Twitter implemented a policy that forbade accounts designed solely for marketing purposes? Tell us your thoughts.

Twitter has worked itself into the mainstream recently, becoming a favorite pastime for people around the globe to report their every move. Increasingly, this has allowed twitter to be the most cutting-edge, current source of unadulterated, up-to-the-minute news. Case in point…  

With that in mind, I’m going to highlight day-to-day the most timely and topical tweeters in cyberspace who are at the forefront of the news cycle.

Today’s Twitter to watch:

http://twitter.com/jimmyfallon

Just hours before his debut as host of the popular Late Show, Fallon’s twitter is buzzing with self encouragement, sneak peeks, and wishes well from celebrities and other cyber patrons. Jimmy notes that he’ll try to tweet during his first taping since “it only happens once.”