'Non-subscribers' will only have access to 20 'free' articles per month. 'All-Access' members will have unlimited access. Looks like the Blah will lose even more readers. This will just make it even easier for me to ignore the Blah.
Sorry Ryan, you might want to leave the Blah before it is too late. That place keeps getting worse and worse, and they do all they can to ruin their customer base.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Technology/20...ibers.html
That will be a conundrum for a formerly great fishwrap.
- UT Fans will not pay for the privilege of sifting through pages of exclusive BG and Big-14 coverage to find the the one small thumbnail with caption relevant to UT.
- BG grads can not afford this.
- Big 14 Fans will complain about the UT thumbnail with caption and jump ship.
(11-27-2012 11:43 AM)Carolina Rocket Wrote: [ -> ]- BG grads can not afford this.
There usually aren't 20 UT articles a month anyways.
There are workarounds if you really want to read more than 20 and not pay. Unless the blah is smarter than the Columbus disgrace and the Dayton daily news, it will be easy.
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I've encounter many news outlets that prohibit access to any article without a subscription. Being able to access twenty articles per month seems researcher/fan friendly.
(11-27-2012 12:55 PM)NewMex RocketFan Wrote: [ -> ]I've encounter many news outlets that prohibit access to any article without a subscription. Being able to access twenty articles per month seems researcher/fan friendly.
Those are normally worthwhile news outlets who are worth it. The Blah is not worth paying for (sorry Ryan, you're a good write and have great coverage for UT, but the powers-that-be at the Blah are worthless. Ex- Putting bgSUCKS on the front page of the sports sections on the day of the HOME game vs Ball St. when we were ranked #23 and having ZERO coverage on gameday; then, having 2 articles on the front page of the sports...when we were the away team...and the 2 articles featured the away team, not UT).
(11-27-2012 01:30 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote: [ -> ] (11-27-2012 12:55 PM)NewMex RocketFan Wrote: [ -> ]I've encounter many news outlets that prohibit access to any article without a subscription. Being able to access twenty articles per month seems researcher/fan friendly.
Those are normally worthwhile news outlets who are worth it. The Blah is not worth paying for (sorry Ryan, you're a good write and have great coverage for UT, but the powers-that-be at the Blah are worthless. Ex- Putting bgSUCKS on the front page of the sports sections on the day of the HOME game vs Ball St. when we were ranked #23 and having ZERO coverage on gameday; then, having 2 articles on the front page of the sports...when we were the away team...and the 2 articles featured the away team, not UT).
I'll just say it's a wide array of publications some of which, IMO, are not equal to the Blade. I am very thankful that, as of now, there are usually multiple ways to get needed information.
Wow, did you see this tweet from Ryan Autullo?
Quote:Predictably, people upset The Blade is charging for online content. Frankly, it's more than fair to charge. Should have happened years ago.
Sorry, but charging for something one can easily do without is not a great business model.
(11-27-2012 02:57 PM)Redwingtom Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, did you see this tweet from Ryan Autullo?
Quote:Predictably, people upset The Blade is charging for online content. Frankly, it's more than fair to charge. Should have happened years ago.
Sorry, but charging for something one can easily do without is not a great business model.
Especially something that 99% of the time isn't worth the paper it's printed on. The Blah is just getting upset that they are losing subscriptions.
(11-27-2012 02:57 PM)Redwingtom Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, did you see this tweet from Ryan Autullo?
Quote:Predictably, people upset The Blade is charging for online content. Frankly, it's more than fair to charge. Should have happened years ago.
Sorry, but charging for something one can easily do without is not a great business model.
That's just the problem. The newspaper industry screwed up when they originally allowed their content to be available online for free. They should have charged a subscription right from the start. Once you give it away you can't change things and say you are going to charge people for what they were getting for free before and expect those people to not be upset and many of them to just walk away.
The industry originally banked on online advertising to bring in the money and have their content available for free. It was a big mistake and the industry has been losing money for years. They set their own grave.
As for Ryan, his coverage of Toledo has been great. He's always welcome to join TheRocketNation.
(11-27-2012 03:58 PM)BrianNowicki Wrote: [ -> ]That's just the problem. The newspaper industry screwed up when they originally allowed their content to be available online for free. They should have charged a subscription right from the start. Once you give it away you can't change things and say you are going to charge people for what they were getting for free before and expect those people to not be upset and many of them to just walk away.
The industry originally banked on online advertising to bring in the money and have their content available for free. It was a big mistake and the industry has been losing money for years. They set their own grave.
As for Ryan, his coverage of Toledo has been great. He's always welcome to join TheRocketNation.
Around here it's called "goin pro."
(11-27-2012 03:58 PM)BrianNowicki Wrote: [ -> ] (11-27-2012 02:57 PM)Redwingtom Wrote: [ -> ]Wow, did you see this tweet from Ryan Autullo?
Quote:Predictably, people upset The Blade is charging for online content. Frankly, it's more than fair to charge. Should have happened years ago.
Sorry, but charging for something one can easily do without is not a great business model.
That's just the problem. The newspaper industry screwed up when they originally allowed their content to be available online for free. They should have charged a subscription right from the start. Once you give it away you can't change things and say you are going to charge people for what they were getting for free before and expect those people to not be upset and many of them to just walk away.
The industry originally banked on online advertising to bring in the money and have their content available for free. It was a big mistake and the industry has been losing money for years. They set their own grave.
As for Ryan, his coverage of Toledo has been great. He's always welcome to join TheRocketNation.
IMHO, the giant screw-up was undercharging on online ad rates from the start. The content could be free if advertisers paid the same rate as they do for print. It took a decade for publishers to stop underestimating the power and future of online distribution. Arrogant and dumb.
I saw Ryan's tweet, but somehow what I heard was this...
Quote:Predictably, people upset The Blade is charging for online content. Despite intentional jabs and snubs aimed at the University of Toledo (a portion of which is the Former Medical College of Ohio), UT sports playing third fiddle in their own hometown paper, and hastily written front page articles within 12 seconds of a UT misstep, Rocket fans are somehow less than pleased that our formerly great paper, formerly of Toledo, is NOW asking money for the same service that they've come to accept without a fee for years.
Right... I know what you're thinking. More than 144 characters.
Typically when you go from a free version of something to a paid version, there is improvement in the quality of service. Will the paid online service be ad-free? Will the readership actually be listened to for once? What's in it for the reader now that wasn't offered when it was free?
Blade app is still free! Lol, I didn't even know the blade had an app!!!!!
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J/C...
Won't impact me at all. I, for the most part, stopped reading the blade completely - in any form - because of their UT coverage years ago. At this point, I might read 5-10 stories a year on it and that's primarily at Signing Day and a big football game or two.
Good luck with that, blade.
Local newspapers are an anachronism that no business model is gonna save, I think. Back in the day the local paper had all kinds of lures to pull in readers - national news, local news, comics, classifieds, stock quotes, sports scores, obits, etc. Other than local news and obits, all those other things are available cheaper, faster and more conveniently elsewhere. The only thing left that can distinguish the local paper (print or on-line) is local news and obits. Guess what, young people don't read obits, and mostly don't care about local news, and they have no brand loyalty to a local provider when the cloud provides things anonymously.
In the long run those unique features are not gonna pull in enough revenue to support the large infrastructure newspapers have. From what I have been told your print subscription more or less just covered the cost of printing and delivering the paper. Essentially everything else was paid for by advertising - reporting, paid content, wire service fees, etc. Unless a paper can find a way to downsize to just a local news service that provides enough unique and desired content that people are willing to pay for, I'm afraid they are all pretty doomed.
It's a be at sht being in business during this climate of regression.
You experts out there who have little or no experience, running a company, pipe down.
As far as the Blade charging big box voyer shoppers..sorry bout your luck.
No more entitle.
Buy a paper...old school.
(11-27-2012 08:54 PM)rocketpete Wrote: [ -> ]It's a be at sht being in business during this climate of regression.
You experts out there who have little or no experience, running a company, pipe down.
As far as the Blade charging big box voyer shoppers..sorry bout your luck.
No more entitle.
Buy a paper...old school.
Respectfully, that's a cop-out. This could be the best economics ever and businesses will still go out of business because the have not created a market. Duh'Blade acts as if the market owes them. Worse, Block acts as if it should cow-tow to him. That's no way to build customers. A "newspaper" is barely about news. I look at old clips on-line. Papers were HUGE and very little was about "news." It was entertainment.
Duh'Blade, formerly known as credible did very little to promote its writers, make them known. They've shown no imagination. Instead, they have promoted the interests, acted as shills for their advertisers (IMHO) and another county. That is a very narrow market whether in paper form or electronic.
Duh'Blade is earning its demise.
(11-27-2012 09:14 PM)eastisbest Wrote: [ -> ]Duh'Blade is earning its demise.
100% agree. And it started way before this.
I still enjoy my am paper and catching up on the Tiger action that I watched the night before.
I being a big Rocket football fan understand our disdain at the lack of coverage, but as a loooong time reader I understand that this town is painted a different color than I and most on this site.
Tough to read ..RIGHT.
We live in quite an intersting town and time.
Go Rockets.