Google Can’t Save the Newspapers, Can NPR?
Feb 17
So we’ve all heard by now that Google is finished trying to save the newspapers, but others haven’t given up hope. Time Magazine published an article claiming that micropayments was the solution – Charging small fees such as a nickel for a day’s edition of the newspaper, or a larger (maybe $2) fee for a month’s worth of access. Critics argue, and I have to agree, that this model has failed in the past and will fail again.
However, a “new” idea has been thrown on the table recently - Instead of making users pay for content, what if you asked them for donations if they like the content? Okay, so the idea isn’t new, National Public Radio has been doing it successfully for decades, but it’s something the newspapers have not tried online yet. Or at least not to my knowledge, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Start up venture Kachingle (in private beta) has a solution that some feel could help bring this model to fruition. From a high level, the Kachingle model works like this:
- A user creates a Kachingle account, and you determine a monthly fee of what you are willing to donate to support good content. This could be $1, it could be $50, whatever you feel good content is worth.
- You sign in once per device – PC, laptop, phone, etc and Kachingle remembers you from that point on.
- Publishers who are part of the Kachingle network place a little Kachingle medallion on thier site
- When you are visiting a blog, online newspaper, etc that you like, you click on their Kachingle medallion which notifies Kachingle that you’d like some of your monthly fee to go to that site.
- Kachingle measures your usage across sites you’ve tagged to receive money, and allocates your donations accordingly. So for example, if you are willing to donate $5 a month to good news content on the web, and 50% of your usage goes to WSJ.com, then Kachingle would give $2.50 to WSJ.com that month. The remaining $2.50 would be split up amongst the other sites you “kachingled” (not sure if that is a real term yet) based on your usage of their sites.
So the real question becomes, is the problem with the paid news model the lack of choice? Will people not pay for online content when they are required to pay for it, but change their mind if they are given the choice to contribute based on their own assesement of the content’s value?
Feb 17 at 11:15
Well, Kachingle is a horrible name, but I think the model sounds fairly ingenious. I like that it seperates the “How much is ‘news’ worth to me?” question from the question “How much is THIS STORY worth?” If I know that news is worth $30/month, wherever it comes from, I can decide that up front, and not have to think too much about WHERE I go for news.
I can also imagine the Kachingle system prompting me after the fact: “You read 132 news stories this month… what were they worth to you?” as a way of encouraging me to give credit (aka money) once I have experienced the concrete benefit.
Frankly, I’d like this model even better if it tied more directly to dedicated hard-news gatherers, rather than outlets. That is, make sure the money subsidizes reporters on the ground rather than the media monopoly corporate boardrooms that have already walked away from news-gathering in favor of sensationalism.
Feb 17 at 11:59
I like the idea of Kachingle as well. The long-term impact to the questions a) is this news and b) how much would people be willing to pay for their news is interesting to me.
I have a feeling that it wouldn’t change the content though, simply the format of the content to more quickly capture people’s attention and be the “first-source” for news.
Example: the headline reads: “Obama decides not to appoint a car czar, instead, he gives this role to Geitner”
Then, someone Twitters that, someone blogs it, someone myspace’s it, someone facebook’s it, someone will text it, someone will overhear someone with a bluetooth at starbucks talking about it, and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, nothing changes other than the format by which the companies make money,
Feb 17 at 12:18
LOL, not only does the husband block me out when I’m talking, but when I’m typing too… You get to CHOOSE who you “kachingle” or designate to receive some of your money. You could visit a site 100 times and never tag them to receive any money if they were putting out junk content. So a publication wouldn’t get money simply by attracting lots of traffic with good headlines, they would get money by people saying “yeah this is good content, I’m going to tag them to receive some of my money so they can stay in business.” In this scenario, catchy headlines with poor content doesn’t work. But writing good content geared towards higher income individuals probably helps.