If readers won’t pay for content, will they for community? That’s what Patrick suggested last week. And Pluck’s European chief Pluck‘s European chief Stephanie Himoff tells paidContent:UK: “I see it as an opportunity.”
Pluck already powers story commenting for publishers like Times Online, Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) and Guardian.co.uk; so how about charging for chat? “Every audience is a community waiting to happen. We’re talking with The Times as they have discussions about moving to the paywall.” Does that mean the paper will charge for social or commenting features? “That hasn’t been decided yet.”
Himoff goes on: “The British Medical Journal is using a set of tools on Doc2Doc, a professional community made for 53,000 registered GPs in this country, and we power Which?, which came up with the notion of member-generated content – to see the members reviews, you have to pay.”
Certainly, it would seem hard to charge for one big newspaper-wide community (say, putting My Telegraph, My Sun or Comment Is Free behind the wall), but, if newspapers can delineate specialist parts of their portfolios as professional publishers have, there may be mileage in the idea.
Looking ahead to next year, Himoff – Pluck’s continental sales and biz dev VP – also wants to target regional news publishers she says are now looking toward hyperlocal community sites. Pluck also powers Trinity’s Local Mole user business reviews directory.
It's a great idea to charge for community, and simutaneously allow specialized members to produce quality UCG for free for your more general audience.
However, I question the strategic usefulness of allowing a third-party to completely manage your community system.
There are high-quality frameworks like django (python), RoR (ruby) and drupal (php) that allow you to create the same systems in a fast manner and then rapidly customize to meet specific needs of your community.
http://www.lenley.com
now were getting somewhere….
interactive news, where news, blogging and interactivity flourish and evolve is the future in this sector…
I love the irony of considering "putting … Comment Is Free behind the [pay]wall"
I'm definitely of the opinion that the real value in the content created by media businesses is in the audience they attract and the community they can create, and this has more potential for charging. However, think this is easier for specialist consumer and professional communities than for newspapers. I've written on how media brands can become meeting places here: http://www.penmaen-media.co.uk/index.php/2009/11/turn-your-media-brand-into-a-meeting-place/
Limiting the specific conversation around and article to those who pay to view the article makes sense while keeping the broad, newspaper-wide community free. The discussions may also prove a tease making someone more likely to pay for the article simply to participate in the discussion. It enables to paper to maintain an open, free platform for discussing the news of the day, while also having very specific discussions that encourage payment of subscriptions.
Carolyn is on to a very interesting idea. As a user I may not place much monetary value on the opinions of my peers. But in select areas – something like finance or other specialists areas – the idea of premium access to a discussion with experts may prove to have very, very real value.
Lenley – leveraging a tool allows them to remain strategically focused on their core competency – producing media and engaging their audiences. They rarely leave management to another party, instead they use a tool created by a third party (whose core competency is the creation of the tool) that enables them to more effectively drive the conversations around their content. (In full disclosure I head up ONEsite.com, the company behind My Telegraph and My Sun).