Summary
Steve Brill's new startup Journalism Online is promising newspaper publishers big money from online readers -- $110 million in two years for a newspaper with a print circulation of 1 million and an online audience of 20 million. Will he succeed? And if he does, will you be one of the few people willing to pay to read the story?
Analysis
Steve Brill's Journalism Online is dangling a lucrative carrot in front of newspaper publishers: Cash from online readers.
The idea is that readers will be willing to pay for a service that pulls content from a variety of websites.
According to the company's projections, with just 10 percent of online readers agreeing to pay $25 a month -- $300 a year -- for a smorgasbord of newspaper content that gets put behind a paid wall, a large metro paper with a circulation of one million could rake in $110 million in two years with the new service. (No projections made for smaller newspapers.)
So far, no publishers have bitten. Why not?
First, the idea that 10 percent of readers will be willing to pay $25 a month for content that is now free seems a bit of a stretch. Most newspaper experts think 1-2 percent is more likely.
Second, there are plenty of smorgasbords available already to snack on -- from Huffington to Drudge to Newser to you-name-it.
Third, even in these trying times, how many newspaper publishers want to tie their digital future to Steve Brill, whose last venture (Verified Identity, which he left in February) closed abruptly just this week?
At a time when newspapers are losing the online battle to competitors of all kinds -- not just the news aggregators and bloggers, but also the TV news sites, YouTube, Twitter, Craigslist, etc. -- putting a price tag on articles might sound like a great idea.
Ten years ago would have been the time to do it.
Today, newspapers are losing ground in the online space even when offering their content for free.
They're already easy to avoid. Putting up an expensive barrier to entry may not be the best solution.
