Monday, November 23, 2009

Technology Guardian moves online

Now back with more web access so can follow up print news on Thursday that the Technology section will not be printed as of 2010. Strange thing is that there was nothing about this from Peter Preston yesterday or the media bit today. Fact and opinion are to be kept apart but surely this is news, something to write about. how can you have a media bit that is often rude about bloggers, citizen journalism etc. and claims that the problems of print are not that urgent, then have a Thursday report that a section will be online only? by the way, the Technology lot want us the readers to write in about it. No payment on offer.

I really do think they should be more informative for the print audience. The policy seems to be to have an online offer that is suitably modern and available free while the people who pay get a limited view. And nonsense from columnists about the dangers of bloggers but anyway back to some sourced speculation.

Will media on a Monday be next?

Copied from journalism.co.uk

The Financial Times’ managing editor, Dan Bogler suggested that while newspapers like the Times or Guardian might not be able to charge for general news, or the front pages, they might be able to charge for niche areas, something he knows they are thinking about.

“The Guardian is big on media, is big on public sector jobs, if they bundled that content both print and online and charged for it, I bet you they could. They might not be able to charge for everything they have but they could charge for certain parts,” said Bogler.

“Yeah well, definitely, Dan’s right – clearly he’s got the inside track on this,” Kelner said.

“The Guardian is looking at the Media being an online section as opposed to being with the newspaper and certainly that is one of the niches the Guardian could charge for.”

MediaGuardian recently celebrated its 25th birthday in print and is read by 525,000 readers every week, according to its advertising information; online it attracts 950,000+ unique users per month.

This is crazy. Will the price be reduced for the people who no longer get a print version of the Technology or Media?

Who is supposed to read the sections? Is it the normal Guardian reader, whoever we are, or is it specialists working in media or tech? Do the people who work in media want to read Peter Preston on the "bilious bloggers"? Enough to pay extra online?

What about some reporting for the general reader on what is actually happening?

More to come on this story I think.

Friday, November 06, 2009

glories of the past are gone

Glories of the past are gone, financial that is and for the music industry. They need to transform to a promising future in ringtones, downloads and streaming. That is the guardian media verdict for Monday 2nd. For newspapers it turns out that "print is not dead" but they seem to be aware of a transformation and news organisations are coping quite well as revenue increases slightly when you include online. Another encouraging sign is that Peter Preston boasts of the UK newspaper success with websites that score well with page views from the USA. I think the Guardian is making a move. However the new model may still need more respect for the readers/contributors than print journalists are used to.