pLot Multi - News Media Blog

(CNN) -- Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/07/murdoch.web.content/index.html

I'm all for the death of "old media" but Mr. Rupert Murdoch, you are making this to easy for digital publishers. Traditional media I love. The difference between "Old Media" and "Traditional Media" is when Traditional Media titans like the Wall Street Journal try to force their linear media business model down their subscribers throats it's refusing to evolve. It's a business model they have rejected online over and over and over again. The numbers are clear. If you can't get people to subscribe to porn anymore, you will not be able to get them to subscribe to news.

In 1995 I published my first on and offline publication called The Y'all Street Journal. The idea was to create a magazine that worked cooperatively with an online community and I called it "Hip Hop's first internet interactive magazine." http://www.ubiquitymags.com/magazines/view_publ_details.php?temp_publ_id=3598&l_back=%2Fsearch%2Fsearch_results.php%3Ffs_DATE_ADDED%3D4%26&

Why it's still online somewhere I am not sure but it's cool to see it's online footprint somewhere. Back then at the tender age of 23 I knew media was changing. I put this out on the news stands and sold out 25,000 copies. Here was the problem. I spent my life savings to print the magazine on my own with no ads. I built the online social network which was just message boards around stories and quickly was getting 500 hundred uniques a day which back in 1997 was great! The magazine was too successful, too fast and when I couldn't get investors then to wrap their head's around a social network that would be ad supported. I tried to explain then that you can't charge for online media because there is too much of it. I couldn't get funding which caused me not to be able to print the next issue. After living online for a while I learned a lesson and time has made it clear that the punk kid back then was right.

That brings us to today. Rupert and Newscorp have already ruined MySpace and now they plan to ruin the Wall Street Journal by expanding how much of WSJ.com's free content will now be subscription only. The NY Times has shown you can still monetize this content if you modernize traditional media. The Washington Post and WSJ.com has not been that successful.

What's worse is the lie that these publication's are telling. They are saying it's because people are getting the news for free that they can't survive. BIG LIE. Do you think that the 50 cents you pay for a newspaper pays for the paper, printing, and distribution of that newspaper. NO! Advertising pays for it all. In online media you can make rich media ads versus static display ads. If you even tried to innovate you can probably reach a larger audience and sell more ads. The assertion that the cover cost of a publication is what makes a traditional publication money is an outright lie. A subscriber pays even less when you subscribe to that newspaper or magazine so the assertion that online media can't be monetized is ridiculous when you think that you can serve more ads and give advertisers more value. The cover cost of a publications pays for getting that publication there. For the trucks, the drivers. The news stand gets a cut too. Media has always been free in a sense and the purchasing of said media was only a measuring stick for advertisers to understand how many people want your content. There is a better and more accurate way now and online publications can tell you exactly how many people want to read your content.

It was multinational media companies like Rupert's that drove the value of "eyeballs" online versus the "eyeballs" on TV or Print down and now they are are reaping what they sowed. The "Old Media" problem was created by Old Media and now that they are going to try to charge for it all they are doing is making room for guys like me. Good luck Rupert. What you are doing is making room for 3 guys in a garage who are really smart about finance, economics and all things "Wall Street" to create an online publication and crush WSJ.com .