Journalism Online

One of the fascinating challenges about New Media is how to monetise content online. I mean, all too often these days, we expect the internet to give us "stuff" for free - which doesn't bode particularly well for the film industry if we're hoping to use the internet as a dynamic means of distribution that cuts out the middleman. Fortunately we're not alone. The publishing business in particular has been hard hit by people wanting to read their news - for free - online.



So it's good to see a report on DMW that a trio of high flying media executives have announced the launch of a Journalism Online, a new venture that aims to help monetize online news publishing. The venture plans to create a distributable system that will allow publishers to charge annual or monthly subscriptions to view their content, as well as a portal where consumers could pay a single fee to access content from multiple participating publications.

Says co-founder Steven Brill: "We believe we have developed a strategy and a set of services that will establish that model by restoring a stream of circulation revenue to supplement advertising revenue, while taking advantage of the savings to be gained from producing and delivering content electronically."

Watch this space