In class on Tuesday I briefly noted that, despite the tendency toward “free” there has been some noise lately about creating paywalls for content. In case you’re curious, here they are:
Murdoch plans to block Google from seeing News Corp materials behind a paywall (Wired’s “Epicenter” blog)
Hulu looks to develop a tiered structure (LA Times)
NY Times plans a monthly fee for regular users (New York Times)
And, I just came across a very interesting post on PBS’ “Idea Shift Media Lab” blog, about how the idea that newspapers “screwed up” by making content free misunderstands the way newspapers actually worked, in that they’re revenue largely came from classified ads rather than purchase or subscription, and what we were paying for was much more than ‘news’.