So who's up for a laugh at Rupert Murdoch's expense?

[beachmom]

This is the guy who has given us Fox News and the New York Post. No one can deny he has been a success in cable TV, and in the past in print journalism. But I think when we are talking the internet, sorry I don't fear the guy. First:

1. This is the guy who bought MYSPACE after Facebook was already taking off!! IDIOT!! Not only that, Myspace's decline has accelerated since its takeover by News Corp. They are now openly saying they want to offload the damned thing, while actually sending e-mails to inactive users to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE come back!!

2. Murdoch decided he was going to put some British publications behind a full scale paywall. The result? Barely anyone reads them anymore. And just from googling apparently some MA publications owned by Murdoch like the Cape Cod Times allow only 10 articles per month or else you have to pay over $200!

3. The Daily, the funniest of them all. First it's for the iPad only which means most people can't even read it. Secondly, he had Fox News pre-empt Egypt for his little infomercial for its unveiling. Thirdly, it ends up it is a general interest newspaper magazine that is not very interesting at all. Fourth, it's already been hacked (ahem, indexed)!

http://thedailyindexed.tumblr.com/

So now you can read it. And believe me, it's not much. Let's just talk the arts. Their article on the break up of the White Stripes reads like a 3rd rate AP article. Better stuff was written out on the web.

The whole thing is RIDICULOUS. I am all for paying for some magazines or newspapers, but not this way. I mean, they have articles that live in the internet but are not accessible from the internet. How dumb is that?

On a serious note, the New York Times is unfortunately going to erect a paywall (again). Meanwhile, other sites like CNN, NPR, PBS, the Guardian, the BBC, and so on will remain free. I think it is downright foolish to follow Rupert Murdoch's lead. He really does not get the internet at all. The iPad is not going to save journalism just like the Kindle didn't.

[beachmom]

1. And just so it's not all poking fun of Murdoch ....

The one development I have seen that does spell a possible future for paying journalists is the Read It Later movement. Like the app "Instapaper" and "Readability". If you guys aren't already using it, I highly recommend Instapaper:

http://www.instapaper.com/

I haven't tried Readability, but this is promising:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/technology/01read.html?_r=1

The DVR rocked the world of television by letting viewers skip commercials and build their own home viewing schedules. Now a handful of Web services and applications are starting to do much the same thing to online publishers.

These tools make it easier for people to read Web articles how, when and where they want, often dispensing with publishers’ carefully arranged layouts and advertisements.

One popular tool, Readability, strips articles to the bare minimum of text and photographs with a single click. But now, Readability wants to give something back to publishers.

On Tuesday, the developers behind the tool will unveil a service that requires a subscription fee of at least $5 a month. The service, also called Readability, plans to distribute 70 percent of that fee to the news outlets and blogs that each subscriber is reading.

This is a PERFECT idea. $5/month to read any article on the Net in a nice format and 70% of the proceeds go to the publications/writers/bloggers. Of course, this isn't the kind of money newspapers were used to back in their hey day but guess what? Those days are over. And this is at least a revenue stream.

[ladym55]

2. Yep.

As one of the FORMER readers of the Cape Cod Times, I can tell you just how effective the subscription service is. Both my husband and I read the Cape Cod Times daily on-line when we were in Ohio. Now neither of us reads the Cape Cod Times at all. So much for readership, Rupert!