Comments on: Google Can’t Save the Newspapers, Can NPR?

By: Erin

Erin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:18:05 +0000

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.

By: Steve S

Steve S — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:59:46 +0000

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,

By: Abram

Abram — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:15:23 +0000

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.