tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post1618247378899946329..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Saturday Morning Musings - premium, freemium & the dreaded appJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-55180455624429770722011-10-23T23:49:41.570+11:002011-10-23T23:49:41.570+11:00Interesting comment on the SMH app, Evan. That wou...Interesting comment on the SMH app, Evan. That would appear to be a weakness. <br /><br />No idea how much the FR makes. Would be interesting to know. I also agree on their real world feel.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-29510185858061202822011-10-22T18:46:29.162+11:002011-10-22T18:46:29.162+11:00The SMH app is weird - they are going to ask you t...The SMH app is weird - they are going to ask you to pay for it but it is like the daily paper and so has less content than the free website which has stuff going back several days.<br /><br />I can't see people paying much for the Oz. I'd be interested to know whether the Fin is actually making money from the digital side of things. (I do think they are good on politics and provide some perspective and analysis of business that has more of the 'real world' feel than the ideological debates in the rest of the MSM (mainstream media).Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13355215688351759230noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-11187422894965612652011-10-22T16:28:10.241+11:002011-10-22T16:28:10.241+11:00Perhaps delivering London would be difficult!
You...Perhaps delivering London would be difficult!<br /><br />You may be right on Greg. I hope that you are not right on the FR approach. <br /><br />If you look at what Jim Barber is doing at UNE at the moment, you will get a feel for just how people can go wrong with technology!<br /><br />A major problem with biggish organisations is that its simply easier to follow a standardised approach. I get no feel at all from the Express that there is much of a bottom up approach, and that's what's needed to my mind.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-5788818440406082352011-10-22T16:17:11.363+11:002011-10-22T16:17:11.363+11:00I am tempted to accept your wager, Jim. My main co...I am tempted to accept your wager, Jim. My main concern is whether you could deliver London if I win.<br /><br />Greg Hywood seemed to me like a sensible person when he was a journalist. One would hope his experience in the commercial side of the business would make him even wiser. In any case he should know the business inside out - and that should make him wary of trying to apply a uniform company-wide solution to all the papers. <br /><br />Hywood has been in the job now since February. I would have thought that would be enough time for him to get his head around the pricing issues, but other things (e.g. cost cutting) might have deserved priority.<br /><br />In the case of the AFR, it is possible that Fairfax management might be just testing the market to see how much rent it is possible to collect from rusted-on readers of the AFR before they cancel their subscriptions becasue they feel 'ripped off' rather than rusted on.Winton Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07383561940886657594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-84767724287249214432011-10-22T13:02:41.035+11:002011-10-22T13:02:41.035+11:00Sensible comments. Winton. I don't know, altho...Sensible comments. Winton. I don't know, although I could probably find out. I suspect that one problem is that they think of Fairfax in some uniform way, whereas each paper is different and the country papers in particular.<br /><br />This links to the point I tried to make in my column re the Express, the difference between the local and expat market. The column was a short one, so its a little more complicated than that. Effectively you have two newspapers with the second forming the base for a local portal.<br /><br />I bet you London to a brick that Fairfax is likely to apply a company wide solution or solutions. Perhaps a column at some point entitled maximising the value of the small.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-58903828874814522432011-10-22T12:35:02.195+11:002011-10-22T12:35:02.195+11:00Yes, it looks to me as though they haven't got...Yes, it looks to me as though they haven't got their heads around the problem of how to charge different market segments. <br />It shouldn't be too hard to set up a range of different pricing arrangements to cater for people who want to read the whole paper regularly, those who want to read particular columns, those who want access to the archives and those who only want access to particular articles. I am wondering whether Fairfax management has actually looked at the issues and decided that their current pricing arrangement for the AFR is the best option for shareholders.Winton Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07383561940886657594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-81791976725730764072011-10-22T11:22:58.779+11:002011-10-22T11:22:58.779+11:00Not any more Winton, although I still but it from ...Not any more Winton, although I still but it from time to time. I still find it useful.<br /><br />The pricing system that you describe sounds dumb. As a broad comment, I don't think that any of the papers have yet got their minds around the way different customers/readers work. Its not one group nor one market.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-19860946384306973882011-10-22T11:06:53.794+11:002011-10-22T11:06:53.794+11:00Jim
I think there is a lot to be said for charging...Jim<br />I think there is a lot to be said for charging for on-line access to media provided the charge is lower than for a subscription to the print edition. However, I am upset with the system adopted by the Australian Financial Review where the charge for on-line access is about $30 a month higher that for the print edition. What annoys most is that my subscription to the print edition doesn't even entitle me to access to the online edition when I am away from home and it doesn't allow me to search the on-line archive.<br /><br />I have subscibed to the AFR for about 40 years, but I am now starting to wonder whether I can live without it. Peter Ruehl's column was worth paying a lot for, but he is no longer with us. Laura Tingle's insights into the failings of the politicians and bureacrats in Canberra are excellent, but I am starting to wonder whether I really want to know about that stuff - its too depressing. Alan Mitchell's columns on economic policy are also excellent in my view - but there isn't really much point reading them because the views he puts are usually fairly close to my own. The editorials are highly variable quality. Unless the AFR manages to provide online access at a reasonable price, I think I might have to declare it a luxury that I can do without.<br /><br />Do you still get the AFR, Jim?Winton Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07383561940886657594noreply@blogger.com