Media Moguls Want Money the Old Way. We Pay Them
July 26, 2009
I found the Bloomberg story “Diller Calls Free Web Content a ‘Myth, Joins Refrain” useful for my snippet file. I am doing a talk for the Magazine Publishers Association, and I want some current quotes to make clear the hopes and beliefs of media moguls. Mr. Diller knows how to make money. His judgment is not quite so good when it comes to Web search. He is the proud owner of Ask.com, the search engine of NASCAR. This is a sport that is struggling just like most Web search companies. At least eHarmony.com did not make the match up.
The Bloomberg story runs down some examples of media executives’ plans for getting those who connect to the Internet to pay for content. You can work through the examples yourself and decide which approach is right for you.
My thought after reading the story was that the information on my Web site and in this marketing blog is free. I run some Google ads, but the revenue doesn’t pay for Tess’s heartworm medicine. I don’t charge for the information available from ArnoldIT.com. I even have a couple of monographs available for free if you click around and do some hunting.
So categorical assertions aside, this Web log costs a reader nothing. I don’t market the Web log. I don’t care if people are annoyed at the comments the addled goose makes.
I think the point is that as long as there are individuals who have time and some ideas to share, there will be free content on the Internet. In fact, for a person wanting to keep track of the topics covered in Beyond Search, some of the for fee information comes in a distant second to what I provide.
The difference, of course, is that I have a reasonably zippy business model compared to traditional information companies. I don’t have to huff and puff. I don’t have to deny that the older models are not as flexible as they once were. I don’t have shareholders to reassure.
For that reason, there will be information available to anyone with an information connection as long as this addled goose can paddle and a handful of fellow geese flock to the information opportunities of the Internet. Quack.
Stephen Arnold, July 26, 2009
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