Comments on: The new economics of media: If you want free content, there’s an almost infinite supply

By: Tom Mallory

Tom Mallory — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:03:15 +0000

Whoops! Two previous comments should be from me, Tom Mallory, not my employer, U-T San Diego.

By: UTSanDiego

UTSanDiego — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:01:57 +0000

here is a link to a story on the plagiarism issue: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/nate_thayer_accused_of_plagiar.php

By: UTSanDiego

UTSanDiego — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 01:00:13 +0000

One point here that overshadows Thayer’s complaints: It strongly appears his article was plagiarized from a U-T San DIego story from 2009. So you get what you pay for in this case.

By: yt75

yt75 — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:48:07 +0000

Why is Mathew Ingram so tied up to the “everything free, everything ad based, almost everything shitty” dogma ?
From being a techie that need tech to take overall power ?
The problem is the all subscription direction, easy small paymets could change a lot. And e new role is necessary for a truly atawad environment:
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/concepts-economie-numerique-draft/

By: Ron Taylor

Ron Taylor — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:29:51 +0000

“Quality content should cost money”. exactly.

Of course, what is annoying is that those web site are making money from advertising and how much money was paid in the buy out for Huff ?? Millions.

Strange that is only in the digital world that people want it all for nothing ….
The don’t expect fuel to be free or clothes etc etc
_____________

By: Brian leary

Brian leary — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:25:31 +0000

If it costs nothing, the only reason to do it is because it will drive revenue somewhere else for the author. In other words – an advertorial.

Any author writing for free should be clear on their downstream revenue stream. Any publisher choosing to accept and publish free content should not be surprised by what they get when soliciting advertorials.

And the royalty streams in all media ain’t what they used to be. Ask the music business and musicians how well the youtube and various internet radio schemes are rewarding the content creators, vs. the aggregators.

Quality content should cost money.

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:13:40 +0000

Really what’s been crowd-sourced is the job of curating, assembling, editing out massive redundancies and fact-checking. To US!

I for one don’t want that job, I’m ah, busy, And the “high cost of news” isn’t my problem either. PAID content is not synonymous with EXPENSIVE content. Millions will cough up $5 for Angry Birds but not to put a reporter in harms way in Syria or to dig deep into real reporting? Says something about us that’s not too flattering.

By: Thad McIlroy

Thad McIlroy — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 06:53:02 +0000

“…not by submitting their work to a handful of traditional outlets, but by turning it into e-books and Byliner singles and other formats, something that has expanded the field of writing more than just about anything since the printing press.”

I fear you’re hearing the familiar siren call that there’s gold in them thar ebook hills. Sure there is: but the number of gold strikes leave the odds similar to making a freelance sale. Just like everything else in publishing the cost of entry into run-of-the-mill ebook publishing is only slightly north or zero and the supply chain is clogged with crap.

And now that Amazon bribes author to offer both quality and crap exclusively on Amazon for “free to Prime members” there’s more garbage than ever, along with stuff that just tries to look like garbage, such as Aaron Shepard’s “From Word to Kindle: Self Publishing Your Kindle Book with Microsoft Word, or Tips for Formatting Your Text in MS Word So Your Ebook Doesn’t Look Horrible (Like Everyone Else’s) (Version 2) [Kindle Edition]“, available on Amazon for a penny (Aaron actually delivers exactly what he promises in his work: he just knows how to game the system better than most).

By: Cary Sherburne

Cary Sherburne — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:34:53 +0000

For a good writer, there are certainly many more opportunities that are much more lucrative than working with traditional publishing. So many people these days can’t write worth a darn, and for more than a decade, I have found that many companies prefer to outsource writing tasks, and usually will pay more than a publishing outlet. They do so because they don’t have the talent on staff and they want it as a variable cost … marketing materials, web content, white papers, bylined editorial, even books. In the end, traditional publishing outlets will suffer from this type of behavior because those of us who can contribute quality writing will turn to other clients, leaving them with plenty of mediocre content …