Charging for content

How publishers are charging for online content or consumption

and implementing paywalls and subscription services

Alastair Bruce
@ajbruce
abruce@microsoft.com

10/02/10
Note: Alastair Bruce is an employee of Microsoft Corporation. The opinions expressed here are his and not
necessarily those of Microsoft.
 Types of paywalls
• Broadly 3 types of paywalls: Metered

– Metered access (users have access to a limited number of free articles.

Once limit is reached, users have to register and/or subscribe) Free-
mium

– Freemium (Some content is free, some is subscription. Free content can

be whole articles or can be teaser text) 100% Sub

– 100% subscription (no content at all is viewable without sub)

• Subscriptions sometimes come with
– Member/Subscription benefits (added incentives to purchase provided Member
benefits

by publisher). Sometimes it is only membership that is sold not the

content itself. Sometimes an experience is paid for not the content itself Bundling

– Bundling (added incentives to purchase provided by third party)

– Micropayments (usually only a micropayment option if already a larger Micropay
ments

subscription option)

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

   Metered Access Freemium 100% subscription Member Benefits Bundling Micropayments Other
FT ü         Rumoured  

WSJ   ü          
Economist   ü          
Which?   ü          

Who’s doing what? ESPN

Nature
NMA
 
 
 
ü
ü
ü
 
 
 
ü
 
ü
 
 
 
ü
 

 
 
 
 
Wanderlust   ü          
Variety ü            
Science   ü       ü  
New Scientist ü            
Lancet   ü       ü  
Ars Technica   ü   ü ü    
Gigaom   ü          
Macjournals     ü        
LWN   ü          
Newsday   ü     ü    
Northumberland Gazette   ü          
Worksop Guardian   ü          
SouthCoastToday ü            
Spectator   ü          
New York Times 2011           ü
Times       ü      
Guardian       ü      
Miami Herald             ü
The Sun             ü
The Telegraph             ü
Globe and Mail   ü          
Le Figaro   Coming          
Le Monde              
Arkansas Online   ü          
Berliner Morgenpost   ü       Rumoured  
Hamburger Abendblatt   ü       Rumoured  

Charging for Content Harper's   Alastair

ü Bruce
  @ajbruce
    abruce@microsoft.com
    10/02/10
 Who’s doing what?
Major newspapers
Metered Freemium 100% Member Bundling Micropayments Other
Access subscription Benefits
FT Rumoured
WSJ
New York 2011
Times
Times
Guardian
Miami
Herald
The Sun
The
Telegraph
Globe and
Mail
Le Figaro Coming soon
Le Monde

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Who’s doing what?
Local news
Metered Freemium 100% Member Bundling Micropayments Other
Access subscription Benefits
Newsday
Northumber-
land Gazette
Worksop
Guardian
SouthCoast
Today
Arkansas
Online
Berliner
Morgenpost
Hamburger
Abendblatt

Broadcasters
ESPN

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Who’s doing what?
Specialist publications
Metered Freemium 100% Member Bundling Micropayments Other
Access subscription Benefits
Variety

Science

Lancet

Ars Technica

Gigaom

Macjournals

LWN

Which?

NMA

Nature

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Who’s doing what?
Consumer magazines
Metered Freemium 100% Member Bundling Micropayments Other
Access subscription Benefits
Wanderlust
Economist
New
Scientist
Spectator
Harper’s

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 How publishers are charging for content online – Part 1
1. Most publishers who charge for content consumption use one of two models. Either they publish some free
content and some content which has to be paid for (the Freemium model used by most, including the Wall Street
Journal), or they impose a limit on the amount of free content that can be consumed and anything above this limit
has to be paid for (Metered access, the best known example of which is the FT)
2. The freemium model is dominant but the metered access model (the FT) appears to be gaining ground in that it is
being used by a higher proportion of new entrants than it has been. The NYT has said it will adopt this model from
2011. NewsCorp used this model for SouthCoastToday, which went behind a paywall in Jan 2010, rather than the
model used for the WSJ.
3. The metered model usually requires registration before subscription which gives access to more free content
4. Freemium ranges from sites where the majority of content is free to those where everything is paid for but there
are a few lines of teaser text to each article. The premium content is usually that which is unique to the publication
(like Which’s ratings, hyperlocal news, WSJ’s industry analysis. Other examples of where the freemium model is
used, but beyond the scope of this examination, are Spotify and Flickr)
5. The Johnston experimental model (see Worksop Guardian) where the reader gets one paragraph then is urged to
buy a copy of the paper is a variation on the freemium model
6. Subscriptions may be sold with added incentives, whether in the form of other benefits from the publisher or from
a third party (such as faster internet access or a complementary product)
7. Many publishers recognise that the content experience is often as important as the content itself. The Guardian’s
iPhone app costs £2.39 but the content readers access through it is free. Membership clubs that give discounts,
exclusive offers, event invitations etc also fall into this category. Arguably those sites that offer standalone premium
sites as a way of indicating exclusivity fall into this category, as do those who bill content as “market research”.
8. Publications without paywalls are often driving registration for other services which may help with instituting
paywalls later on. The Washington Post is particularly active in driving registration and also has a points system in
place which may help convert users to paying subscribers.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 How publishers are charging for content online – Part 2
9. There are not many 100% subscription models where readers can’t access anything at all without paying
10. The Miami Herald is the only publisher of its type I can find that asks for donations – a model typically followed by
sites and organizations like Wikipedia
11. There are fewer examples of paywalls in use where there is only an online outlet
12. Most blend online and print subscriptions – one drives the other. Johnston press’ experiment where you’re
encouraged to buy paper is a different blend.
13. Subscribers to print publications usually get access to premium online content included with their print
subscription. Only in a (very) few cases do print subscribers have to pay extra to consume online content.
Conversely online only subscribers (where this is an option) almost always have to pay more to get the printed
product
14. Most specialist publications, like Science, Nature etc seem to have a paywall already
15. Local publications, arguably those who have the most to lose by not trying pay walls, seem to be implementing
them quickly, though there is no obvious movement from Northcliffe/DMGT on paywalls apart from thisismoney
charging for stock tips.
16. Subscription on many sites is surprisingly undersold
17. There is often a variety of subscription options and pricing points
18. Rates are fairly similar with specialist journals being most expensive
19. Micropayments tend to be more common with specialist journals or magazines like Lancet and Nature. The FT is
launching day passes in 2010 with pay-per-article later on. Arkansas Online (no slide in this study) sells a day pass.
20. Most paid-for content still comes with ads. A few are selling “no ads” as a reason to subscribe.
21. Some publishers, notably the Guardian, are vociferously anti-paywall for their own publications (while recognising
they might work for others)
22. See slides 13-51 for specific examples

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 What happens in search engines when users
search for subscription content? And Social
media?

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results, social media and paywalls
1. In common with free content, subscription content varies in its ease of discoverability in search engines
and in how well formed the results are
2. Where freemium sites have done their seo effectively, and assuming subscription content is not delisted
from search engines, then they won’t lose search referrals since the headline and first couple of lines
(what appears in search results) are still free.
3. Where clicks will fall off is in the examples from the Northumberland Gazette, the Economist, Nature, and
CrainsDetroit.com where the subscription wall gets in the way of effective SEO.
4. Bounce rate is currently a problem for publishers and most will find it even more difficult to convert casual
users to loyal ones who land on premium content. Many will use the back button, especially if there are
several competing results, some of which are free.
5. Some results in search engines for subscription content give no indication content must be paid for and the
usual headline and two lines of text are returned. Others are clear that the content is behind a paywall.
6. With some sites (FT), there is a way around the subscription wall (this will be modified in Q2). Pasting a
headline of a paywalled article into Google means readers can read as many articles as they like and are
not limited by paywalls or the first-click-free scheme.
7. Premium content will only be tweeted, Dugg, facebooked etc by subscribers and they might be tempted to
do less of this if they know only a few will be able to consume it. WSJ however claim social media can still
be a valuable traffic driver for publications behind paywalls.
8. See slides 53-59 for specific examples

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Appendix: Site examples

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Micropay
Metered
ments?
FT.com
• Jan 2010: unregistered access allows users one
free article (was 2) per month. Registration allows
10 free.
• Std subscription £3.29 a week and Premium online
is £4.99 (up from £3.99 in 2009) and premium +
newspaper delivery is £10.02 (prices per week).
Details here and here
• 1.6 million registered users globally (Oct 2009),
121,000 of whom pay for content
• Considering adding micropayments. Bringing in a day pass
this year with plans to introduce charging per article but
not until the technology is correct
• First introduced a pay barrier in 2002 but switched
to current model in 2007
• Number of registered users has risen from “almost
zero” in 2007 to 400,000 in 2008 to 1.3m in 2009
(Wired) or 1.6m (CampaignLive.co.uk).
• Note the cutting of free access and increase in subscription rates in 2010.
• According to the editor 2010 likely to be the year content revenue overtakes ad revenue (total daily paid-for circulation figure is
563k – all forms of delivery)
• The screenshot shows what users see if they have used up their free allocation – no extra text at all, just the teaser and headline
they clicked on.
• Clicking on articles from ft.com brings up the Registration notice but pasting the headline into Google then clicking on the result
allows me to read the whole article.
• Mobile app works on the same tiered model

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
WSJ (Europe)
• Mixture of free and
premium content –
approx 50/50
• Online subscription $1.99
a week or online and
print is £102 for a year
(as of 12 Jan). Rates here.
• Promoted via little ads
and key symbols
• User gets 3 paragraphs
then subscribe link

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
Economist
• Some subscription only articles
but most is free
• Reader is given a few lines of
teaser text
• Registration gives 14-day access
to subscriber content with no
obligation to subscribe
• Digital only subscription - $95
• Print subscription (with access to
digital) - £102
• Registration/subscription
inducements very text-heavy

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
Which?
• 200k subscribers paying £75
a year each, according to the
former editor.
• Feature and price
comparison available for
free, users have to subscribe
to that content which is
unique and key to their
search, such as Best Buys,
Don’t Buys and Highest
Rated.
• One month trial for £1
Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10
 Member
Freemium
benefits
ESPN Insider
• From $2.50 a month
• Subscriber gets
exclusive video,
extra reportage,
blogs tools
• Subscriber also
gets access to new
things first (Beta
access) and invitations
to events. Subscription not just about content, about experience and
exclusivity
• Gives you about 4 paragraphs of teaser
• ESPN Insider is standalone site and is linked to from main ESPN site (mainly
through headlines)

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Micropay
Freemium
ments
Nature
• Mixture of free
and subscription
content (as
visible on
homepage)
• You can buy
individual articles
or subscribe
• Articles start at
$8
• One paragraph as teaser
• Rates for online only access and articles
• Rates for print + online subs

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
NMA
• Mixture of free and
subscription only
• Get first para as teaser
• Only one sub offer (it’s the
full subscription or
nothing for 1, 2 or 3 years
• Discounted rates to events
• £99 for a year
• Has an iPhone app
Member
benefits
Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10
 Freemium
Wanderlust
• Distinctive content, such as trip planners to
destinations are behind the sub wall
• Readers can subscribe to just a digital version
of the mag more cheaply than the print
version

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Metered
Variety
• Follows the FT model: two articles, columns, photos
or videos free per month, and three more by
registering.
• If you click on an article from a search engine you do
get the sub barrier, unlike with FT articles.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 More print-based publications
• Science Micropay
Freemium
ments
– Most content is premium.
– Subscribe or pay per article
– As with Nature you get online and print subscriptions
• New Scientist
Metered
– Similar model to FT. Can read 6 articles per month, registration
gives access to another 9, then subscription is unlimited access
• Lancet
– Print and online or online only subscriptions
– Readers can pay per article Freemium
– Readers get a summary of the findings then a subscription link

Micropay
ments
Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10
 Member
Freemium
benefits
Ars Technica
• Premium version for $50 a year Bundling

• Membership benefits as well as extra content

• Banner-free browsing, technical improvements
• Currently
offering a
subscription
to a
complimentary
and non-
competitive
magazine
(Wired)

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
Gigaom
• Gigaom offers Gigaom Pro -
what it bills as “insider
analyst research and
commentary” for $79 a year
• It’s what others might call
premium content billed as
essential research
• Gigaom Pro is a standalone
site also promoted from the
main site

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Some other web-only publications
100% Sub
• Macjournals
– delivered as an ad-free newsletter daily or weekly
for $39.95 and $14.95 a month respectively
• LWN
– Offers a “user decides what to pay” option – the
starving hacker rate
Freemium

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Bundling Freemium
Newsday.com
• Local news, high school sport scores etc from $5 a
week for .com subscription only (relatively high)
• Access to site free if subscribe to print
• Only a few lines accessible without registering
• No register only option – payment needed
• Launched in October 2009
• Search results – get regular results with headline and
a couple of lines of teaser
• They’re also bundling a faster broadband subscription
service with the content subscription as an extra
option. Broadband provided by division of the same
company
• Web traffic dropped by 21% after paywall
• As of late January they had acquired only 35 subscribers. Caveat: “Anyone who has a newspaper
subscription is allowed free access;
anyone who has Optimum Cable,
which is owned by the Dolans and
Cablevision, also gets it free.
Newsday representatives claim that
75 percent of Long Island either
has a subscription or Optimum Cable.”

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
Johnston press
• In November 2009 began a small scale trial
involving several local papers.
• Two different types of model being tested.
– Subscription: Northumberland Gazette,
Whitby Gazette, Southern Reporter
– Encouraging purchase of paper: Worksop Guardian,
Ripley & Heanor News, Carrick Gazette
• Both are freemium but with one offering online
sub and the other encouraging paper purchase

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Northumberland Gazette (Johnston)
• All the major news is Freemium
premium
• 2+ paragraphs of teaser
• You have to register, then
subscribe – can’t do it in
one.
• Only one subscription
option – 3 months for £5
(presumably because it’s
a trial)
• Subscription message is
at top of articles
Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10
 Freemium
Worksop Guardian
• Homepage contains no obvious
indication that the content will not
be available online
• Text of articles gives about one
para of teaser followed by an
inducement to purchase the paper:
“For a full report on this and all the
latest local news, sport and leisure,
make sure you get your copy of the
Worksop Guardian - now on sale
on Thursday afternoon.”
• This appears even on archive
content where the full story won’t
be in next Thursday’s paper.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 SouthCoastToday.com
• Combination of metered access and freemium
(some is always free)
• Launched Jan 12, 2010 (along with
RecordNet.com)
• $4.60 a week for access to everything, inc
paper. $3.37 for online access
• What’s free and what isn’t. A lot of what’s
behind the wall is the really local stuff – what
you would expect not a lot of people do (high
school scores etc)
• Similar model to FT (monthly, the first 3 local
articles consumed do not require any
registration and with registration up to 10
articles can be viewed
• The free content consists of wire sources i.e.
AP, user generated content and blogs; what
most would consider commodity or near
commodity content widely available.
• Advertised the move well in advance
• Owned by NewsCorp (part of DowJones)
• Print subscribers have to pay extra to see
every part of the website (not many
publications do this). 39c a week extra. Metered
Freemium

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
Spectator
• Content usually behind a paywall (as of Sep 2009)
but while compiling this
report, the Spectator
decided: “One of the joys of living in
Britain is watching the country fall apart when
some snow falls. Trucks laden with your copies of The Spectator are, alas, no exception to this ­and we gather that
many of our readers could face delays before receiving their magazines. So we have decided to put the whole
magazine online this week (7 January - 14 January)  ­making it free to everyone, not just our subscribers. It's no
substitute for the whole thing, I know, and can only apologise as our trucks and postmen battle through the snow.”

• Iphone app (see slide 44 on iphone apps)

• Offers postal subs, online subs, a digital version and a version
to download to your Kindle
• Latest mag content behind paywall, rest is free

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Freemium
The Globe and Mail
• Subscriptions to print and online handled separately.
• Subscribers to
print version have
to pay extra to
access the online
archive. $15.95
a month gives
access to 100
archived articles
(going back to 2000),
a financial site and
the e-edition of the
paper.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Harper’s
• A print subscription
gives access to the
online archive

Freemium

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Micropay
Freemium
ments
Arkansas Online
• Registration allows user comments and
participation
• 99c buys a day pass
• Print subscription entitles subscriber to online
sub
• ArkansasOnline Membership does not include
access to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
archives, which charges per story for articles
more than seven days old

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Berliner Morgenpost , Hamburger Abendblatt

• Access to all content on morgenpost.de costs €4.95

(£4.32/$6.79) per month. A premium subscription to
abendblatt.de costs €7.95 (£6.93/$10.90) per
month. Abendblatt.de has a mixture of free and
premium content: it appears it charges extra for
content specific to the Hamburg region, while
making national news free. Subscriptions for both
Freemium
are renewed on a monthly basis. From PaidContent
• Parent company, Axel Springer, wants to introduce
Micropay
pay-per-article fees? ments?

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Le Figaro (and other French publications)
• Monday 15 Feb launch
• L’Express later in the year
• Le Figaro delayed because of the cost of implementing the
paywall (little attention seems to have been paid in the
media to the extra costs paywalls incur for publications)
• LeF: €8pcm for articles from NYT, social networking,
archive; €15pcm for a business subscription. News remains
free.
• Le Monde has a pay wall around premium content on its
site. €6pcm Freemium

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Other
• The Witness, a South African regional daily,
charges R283 for 3 months’ access (around
£12 – expensive by SA stds). Has under 21k
daily sales but backed by Media24.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Coming soon: NewsCorp
From Roy Greenslade blog in November 09
“a Daily Telegraph reporter, who simply asked for an update on Murdoch's
previous announcement that News Corporation's news sites would start
charging for content by the end of this fiscal year (i.e., June 2010).
Murdoch replied:
"No. We are working very, very hard at this but I wouldn't promise that
we're going to meet that date. I'm not prepared to comment on that all.
It's a work in progress. There's a huge amount of work going on, not
just with our sites, but with other people like your company.“

• A number of NC owned sites (SouthCoast, WSJ) are already behind

paywalls so look to these for clues as to Sun, Times strategy. WSJ is
premium but metered model adopted for SouthCoast.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Coming soon: New York Times
• The NYT will start charging from 2011 using a metered system. Details on number
of free articles and rates not yet available, except that the reader will pay a “flat
fee for unlimited access”.
• Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday
paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge.
• Readers will be able to read individual articles through search engines without
charge. After that first article, though, clicking on subsequent ones will count
toward the monthly limit
• The metered payment system is being built internally
• Currently actively driving registrations in preparation for subscription
• Other ways of generating revenue include Knowledge network - Adult education
courses
• Electronic version of the Times (weekly) for $3.45 a week
• Subscribe to crosswords and sudoku
Metered?

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Coming soon: Hulu?
• Likely to go behind sub wall. No clarity on
when, but possibly “as early as 2010”
according to News Corp’s (who jointly own
Hulu) president and COO – announced Oct
2009.
• More info on rumours from Mashable and
RWW and Digital Spy

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Coming soon: Other
• The Daily Record in Pennsylvania and the
Enterprise-Record in California will start
charging in May. 
• Daily Despatch and the Mail & Guardian in
South Africa have indicated they will start
charging

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Appendix: Other ways of generating revenue
And of preparing to generate revenue

(excluding display, contextual and

classified ads, comparison services and
merchandising of a third party’s products)

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Other ways of generating revenue
• The Scotsman
– Conferences
– Buy photos
• Scientific American
– Digital version of mag available
• National Geographic
– Merchandising: sales of DVDs and other NG stuff
– National Geographic Society
• Slashdot
– View pages without seeing ads
• Spotify
– iPhone app
– Premium for £9.99 a month
– Other membership benefits
• Naxos
– Pay to listen to catalogue of classical music
• Bloomberg and Reuters
– Professional services

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Christian Science Monitor
• Subscriptions to electronic and print versions
of the mags and daily briefings
• Content is free on the website but they try
and upsell

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Miami Herald
• Asks for donations to support news coverage –
bottom right of articles
• Doesn’t suggest amount

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Washington Post
• Has a points scheme
(PostPoints) which could be
useful when paywalls come
• Won’t let you read and
participate without registering
• Registration allows Review
movies, books, and
restaurants
• Probably driving up
registrations to have a strong
base when paywall time
comes

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Telegraph
• Subscribe to e-paper
• Clued Up – subscribe to play puzzles,
crosswords etc, from £2.99 a month

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Member

Times benefits

• E-paper
• Crossword club - £25 a year
• Currently advertising Times+ heavily, which is
a membership club. Receive offers and other
benefits. Guardian considering same.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 The Sun
• 2010 Page 3 calendar
• Page 3 scores on your mobile - £1.50 a week
• Mystic Meg on your mobile

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Member

Guardian benefits?

• iPhone App – charges £2.39 but content free once app

is downloaded
• Almost 70k downloads in first month. Assuming all
were paid for and Apple takes 30% then this is
revenue of £115k
• Proposed Readers’ club
• Has ruled out a paywall, with the editor, Alan
Rusbridger, saying they’re not a one-size-fits-all policy
and will “remove the industry from the digital
revolution.”

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Some iPhone Apps
• Guardian - £2.39
• Who wants to be a millionaire – £2.99
• The Moron test – 59p
• Monopoly – £2.99
• Jamie’s 20 minute meals £2.99
• Tip converter – £1.19
• Currency converter – 59p
• Spectator - 59p to download plus 59p a week for access to
the magazine or £2.39 a month
• BILD and DIE WELT

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Appendix: Search and social
examples

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: Crain’s Detroit
• This is an example of where a user is offered a choice in
search results between one that is effectively SEO-ed(and
free) – the 2nd result and one that is imperfectly rendered.
• If a user clicks on the first result they end up on the site on
the right. That result is likely to lead to the user clicking back
to the results and clicking on the 2nd result

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: WSJ
• Here a search result with headline and
description (the first two lines of the story) has
a better chance of attracting a click and a
subscription than the Crain’s Detroit example

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: Economist
• Here the page title reduces the
clickworthiness of the result
• On the Economist page having the first text as
subscription text rather than content may turn
some users off

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: Northumberland Gazette
• The first result will be less effective in garnering clicks
• The page a user lands on has quite an intrusive
subscription message so may turn users off. The
counter-argument though is that the message may
get more eyeballs and so more clicks.

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: FT
• Clicking on articles from ft.com brings up the Registration notice but
pasting the headline into Google then clicking on the result allows me to
read the whole article (screenshot on right).

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Search results: Nature
• The headline is fine but without the page
description this result won’t get as many clicks

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Paywalled content on social sites
• This tweet below goes to a page without
any content on it.
• This is unlikely to lead to more
subscriptions for Crain’s Detroit, though
if the social link comes from a trusted
user then users are more likely to be
inclined to explore further
• But if a user knows content is behind
a wall and others are unlikely to be
able to read something then this
might cause less dissemination of the
content
• A result with at least some content on
the page is likely to be more effective in
driving new users and subscriptions
• AT the time of writing Google’s Buzz allows
sharing of paywalled content

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Notes
• Alastair Bruce is an employee of Microsoft
Corporation. The opinions expressed here are
his and not necessarily those of Microsoft.
• The survey was conducted between
December 2009 and February 2010.
• Please contact the author with any queries

Charging for Content Alastair Bruce @ajbruce abruce@microsoft.com 10/02/10

 Alastair Bruce
@ajbruce
abruce@microsoft.com

10/02/10

Charging for content

How publishers are charging for online
content or consumption and implementing
paywalls and subscription services