# NY Times to charge for website?

San Francisco – Three media veterans plan to bundle the internet content of newspaper and magazine publishers into a subscription package that will test web surfers’ willingness to pay for material that has been given away for years.

The system won’t be ready until the fall, but the plans were announced late on Tuesday because so many publishers already are clamouring to sign up, said Steven Brill, co-chief executive of the new venture, called Journalism Online.

“The interest in this came together a lot more quickly than we anticipated,” said Brill, the founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine. “We are dancing as fast as we can now.”

Brill declined to identify the publishers willing to participate because agreements haven’t yet been signed.

Journalism Online’s other principals are former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz and former cable television executive Leo Hindery.

The decision to place more toll booths in front of online news reflects the deepening financial problems threatening the survival of print publishers, particularly newspapers.

Since 2005, the annual volume of print advertising in US newspapers has plunged by $12.7bn, or 27%, according to the Newspaper Association of America.

Filing for bankruptcy protection

Over the same time, the amount of online advertising on newspaper websites has risen by $1.1bn, a 53% increase, not nearly enough to offset the erosion in print.

With their profits shrivelling, newspapers have been laying off workers and cutting other costs. In the most severe cases, five newspaper publishers have filed for bankruptcy protection since late last year, while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has gone online only and the Rocky Mountain News has closed.

Many newspaper publishers now believe they can stop the haemorrhaging by charging for at least some of the material on their websites instead of giving it away.

Besides raising more revenue online, internet subscriptions could be included in the cost of a print subscription, as a way to persuade more readers to keep paying for print editions.

“That’s a very important piece of this,” Brill said. “If you are trying to sell your product with one hand and give it away with the other, then you are undermining the integrity of your product.”

The risk of asking readers to pay for online news is that many publishers might find it shrinks their audience, especially if other news sites remain free. And that could leave the publishers that charge internet fees with even less ad revenue, exacerbating their headaches.

‘Pay wall’

Few newspapers now charge for access to their websites. The Wall Street Journal is the largest one to do so, with nearly 1.1 million subscribers.

By putting content behind a “pay wall”, publishers also could keep search engines from indexing the stories and then delivering links to them in search results.

Journalism Online hopes to negotiate licensing agreements with Google and other services so the search engines could show links to stories that only paying subscribers can read.

Journalism Online’s business model will share some elements with the cable and satellite TV packages that have become staples in millions of households.

The company plans to offer an “all-you-can-read” option that would give customers access to the content of all the participating publishers for a monthly fee, expected to range from $15 to $20, Brill said.

The publishers will divvy up the revenue, based on which articles draw the most readership each month.

Readers also will able to buy a pass for one-day access to the content kept behind the so-called pay wall.

Beyond asking more readers to pay for online news, the newspaper industry also appears poised to try harder to stop the spread of its material to free sites beyond its control.

Blocking unlicensed use

Last week The Associated Press, a not-for-profit cooperative, announced it would get more aggressive in blocking the unlicensed use of the industry’s copyright material.

Journalism Online appears ready to handle antitrust, copyright or other legal concerns triggered by its plans. The company’s board of advisers includes prominent antitrust lawyer David Boies and Theodore Olson, former US solicitor general.

Meanwhile, News Corp said on Tuesday it is forming a new portal that will allow the sharing of content between its journalism properties, which include The Wall Street Journal, The Times in the UK and Fox News.

News Corp said Executive Vice President John Moody will direct the new portal, and has been tasked with “investigating the company’s worldwide contracts and reliance on global news services”.

The media company added that Moody will collaborate with news chiefs across its properties to improve news gathering efficiencies and identify areas for cost cutting.

Also on Tuesday, a handful of former Seattle Post-Intelligencer writers and photographers launched an online newspaper, nearly a month after their publication closed.

The website, seattlepostglobe.org, features pictures and stories about the Seattle Mariners’ home opener and the race for city attorney.

The non-profit venture by the former P-I staffers has partnered with the Seattle Weekly, which is owned by Village Voice Media, and with public television station KCTS.

In March, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its last edition after 146 years.

- AP (news24.com)

Wishing all the other runners much joy and encouragement.

Bizcommunity – 10 March 2008
IOL technology – 13 March 2008
News24.com – 28 May 2008
Moneyweb – 28 August 2008
My Broadband – 10 September 2008
Media 24 – 29 October 2008

These are my favourites from the party gallery

Uno de Waal (left) & Sarietha Engelbrecht (Youth Strategy: Media24)

Sessa (left) and Matt Buckland

Elan Lohmann (GM social networks MIH Africa) and I

More pics after the jump

Jade Allen, and her friends

David Perel (Obox/ From The Couch)

The Bagley and his wife

Niekie Deetlefs (Lead engineer BWCOM) and Annel Malan (Speakerbox editor)

Thank you to everyone who showed up – we had a great time.

This post was originally posted on Charl’s blog.

Cape Town – Winds of up to 60km/h wreaked havoc at the Cape Argus Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour on Sunday, collapsing tents and scaffolding.

A woman broke her arm when the breakfast tent at the start of the race collapsed with her inside, said joint operations manager for the event Brad Geyser. She had since been taken to hospital to have the broken limb set.

Geyser said: “The wind did a lot of damage. We didn’t expect it to be this strong.”

The start of the race itself was delayed 54 minutes because of the wind, with wind speeds of 40km/h measured at Chapman’s Peak and 60km/h elsewhere on the route, he said.

Scaffolding erected at the Allan Gray building, near the finish line, collapsed, crushing three cars, but injuring no-one. A tent at the finish line also came down.

Most of the structures erected for the race at the start and finish lines had to be taken down because the wind was so severe, said Geyser.

The Greenpoint stadium construction site, where most of the hospitality tents were erected in sandy ground, became a “dust bowl” which the fire department had to water down, he said.

Geyser said heat was not a problem during this year’s race, because the wind had a “cooling effect”.

In some areas there was such a wind chill factor that cyclists had to be warned not to stop.

In one of the nastier incidents, a woman cyclist hit the tar face first in the Perdeberg, breaking both collar bones and sustaining scratches on her face.

Another cyclist’s ribs were crushed when he came off down Chapman’s Peak. A doctor on a motorcycle immediately attended to him and he was taken to hospital right away.

Although 35 000 cyclists entered this year, only 25 600 started the race, said the organisers. The wind had resulted in much slower times than usual, they said.”

I too took part in this years Argus Epic. I was meant to start at 08.42 but due to the delays only got going closer to 10.00. I’m sitting here at my PC with very sore legs and odd sun tans but a generally satisfying feeling that I completed what is going down as the toughest Argus ever. The excessive wind as well as the addition of Boys Drive to the route certainly made for different prospect compared to the past 3 tours that I’ve taken part in. Well done to all those that completed the race… Next event on the calendar is the Two Oceans half marathon.

For a good overview of the race have a look at the following link: photo slide it includes pics of Matt Damon who also completed the race.

Its been about 3 months now since I first opened my Standard Bank trading account and bought my first shares. What a glorious sunny day that was. Unfortunately the track record of my chosen shares has been more doom and gloom. The economic downturn of late has had its effect and so my trading account dashboard shows alot of red arrows pointing downwards as opposed to the more favourable green ones in the other direction. Maybe this is the best way to learn though. This makes me feel better.

I haven’t looked much further than what Standard Bank had to offer in terms of trading accounts for the simple reason that I already have my accounts setup with this institution. I must say though, although I generally don’t have many good things to say about banks I am impressed with their offering here. Once you have your trading account they also offer various tuttorials that you can attend at no charge at all. I plan to attend my first one next week.

Bought some Grindrod shares today – after reviewing some of the comments coming from the chat feature. Maybe somewhat blind purchase sure. But so far marginal growth of 1.7%…

Need to know more about “shorting”!