Experimenting with paid content: a semantics problem

Al Tompkins ran part of an interview with Belo VP James Moroney III and highlighted one section in particular where the exec said:

Two years ago, I would have told you that asking people to pay for content on the Web is a ridiculous notion. Today, I will tell you it’s almost imperative we experiment with it to see what the consumer will respond to.

Aren’t we past the stage of experimenting? Didn’t almost every newspaper try paid content at some point? Aside from my beliefs about the possibilities of paying for articles, archives and what-not, this makes it sound like the idea is brand new. Oh gosh, why didn’t we think of that before?

And I truly wish the reporter would’ve pressed the issue a bit more. Do lawsuits like the one GateHouse recently settled become legitimate? If any content from behind a pay wall is quoted in a free space, that would seem to me that monetary damages and a legal cause would follow. What would that do to information on the internet? How would the link economy be affected if users followed links only to be told they had to register and pay?

Don’t get me wrong, my passion for journalism will mean NOTHING if it can’t be monetarily supported. I don’t want to work for peanuts (or free) either.  But this seems to be an old-school idea to me. Maybe Kindle is working because it’s a significantly different format. Maybe we should try to think outside the scope of current operations to find a sustainable solution.

Listen to the high school kids

One of the local newspapers is restructuring. (The other one isn’t doing so hot either, but I haven’t seen many public statements about changes.) I’m still puzzled about why this is a big deal. Ford isn’t producing the same cars they did twenty years ago; why should newspapers be beholden to a centuries-old, dead-tree model? Even the high schoolers can tell you what’s up.  Two high school students are getting ready to tell their principals:

1. The Web has won.

2. Learning communities have no boundaries.

3. Educators need to focus more on how to improve rather than restrict student access to the Internet.

A few minor changes and it could be the perfect message to the newsprint holdouts.

The Web has won. And bonus: we can still make money there! The Web is becoming another apendange for most people, particularly those in my generation. To have ANY hope we have to reach out on the preferred platform.

News has no boundaries. Things that happen halfway around the world can be intersting to people here in Iowa. News can break on social networks, in the comments, through pictures, and news cycles have entirely different lives given the available technology. We have to start living it 24 hours a day. No holding stories for the 5 p.m. or the next day’s edition. Your readers will get the news somewhere else if you aren’t providing it for them.

Publishers and managers need to focus on getting past the basics. Settling for a limiting CMS, sticking by text-only repeats from the paper/broadcast and generally playing it safe while not investing won’t fly anymore. It’s not enough to say, “yeah! we have a Web site!” The possibilities online are endless (to use the cliche) and if all you are giving me is text and video or audio that can’t be embedded in the article text, you are sending me the signal that you are so half-assed that I don’t need to waste my time.

Of course, I could preach on about all these things in terms of corporations as well. Maybe for another day.

Inside the box

I was having a G chat conversation with a friend today when she said (or, rather, wrote) something that that caught my attention. She was getting frustrated with a PowerPoint presentation she was working on because it was consuming her life. She said: “I feel like my life has come down to deciding whether things should be in boxes or arrows.”

Now, I have my own frustrations with PowerPoint as a communication tool, but I think there is a greater point here. As a young, entry level employee in a big company, my friend (and many like her, including myself) get brainwashed in templates, style, protocol, procedures and everything else that makes up a corporate psyche. Sure, those standards are necessary to make things run smoothly and ensure consistency. But we get so consumed with *literally* thinking inside the box that we forget how to be creative. When the boss turns to you and wants to see innovation, creativity or something new, it’s such a disarming feeling. And trying to propose any new innovation is almost impossible to do while still observing the litany of rules.

I think this goes way back, before our first jobs. I saw this post by David Armano a while ago, and it has stuck with me. We (millennials) are used to guidelines and rules like coloring within the lines. Playing by them guaranteed excelling on standardized tests, getting good recommendations, going to good colleges, yet were never did anything exceptionally well. By simply following the rules, doing what we were supposed to do, we progressed right along.

So how do we, as Armano said, let imaginations grow while still enforcing some basic ground rules? I’m not exactly sure, but as I’m contemplating a new internship program at work, I’m trying to keep that in mind. I think there should be opportunities to take on a pet project and devote time — an hour a day or five hours a week — to it. And I think fresh interns have a real opportunity to hear a problem and make some imaginative suggestions. Those of us with the ground rules can handle making it conform, if necessary. I’m just starting to brainstorm so other ideas are very, very welcome!