Mediagazer: How to get your readers to love paywalls (Laura Hazard Owen/paidContent)

9:25 AM ET, November 1, 2012

Top News:

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

Online paid-content market poses threat to traditional advertising — The rise of tablets and smartphones will help grow the online paid-content market 65% to £8bn a year by 2017, with consumer spending on digital news rocketing 77% to almost £250m, according to a report.

Discussion: paidContent and NetNewsCheck Latest

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

How to get your readers to love paywalls — Okay, maybe “love” is too strong a word, but a new study suggests that newspapers enacting paywalls should emphasize financial need, not profit motives, when announcing them to readers. — The study, “Paying for What Was Free …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, online.liebertpub.com, IU News Room and JIMROMENESKO.COM

Heidi Moore / Guardian:

Even a superstorm is no excuse for journalists not to check Twitter trolling — The rage reserved for @ComfortablySmug's mischievous tweet about a flooded NYSE should be aimed at media professionals — “On the internet,” notes one pooch to another in that wise old New Yorker cartoon from 1993, “nobody knows you're a dog.”

Discussion: Poynter, GigaOM, @cschweitz, @penenberg, @felixsalmon, Big News Network.com, BtoB Magazine, CNN, @moorehn, Gothamist and The Verge

David Carr / Media Decoder:

How Hurricane Sandy Slapped the Sarcasm Out of Twitter — Twitter is often a caldron of sarcasm, much of it funny, little of it useful. But as a social medium based on short-burst communication, Twitter can change during large events — users talk about “watching” the spectacle unfold across their screens.

Discussion: Forbes, New York Times, The Huffington Post, MediaPost, Business Week, The Wall Blog, Real-Time News from Mobile, CBS News, GigaOM, The Editorialiste, Radio & Television …, AMERICAblog, Salon, Betabeat, ABCNEWS and Gawker.com

Cotton Delo / AdAge:
Hurricane Sandy Boosts Local Online News Brands

Discussion: Street Fight

New York Times: Storm Sends News Media Scrambling

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Telegraph launches limited paywall — New York Times-style metered system will charge non-UK users £1.99 a month to visit the site after 20 free page views — The Telegraph website has launched its long-awaited digital paywall with a metered system, charging non-UK users £1.99 …

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, PressGazette and Telegraph

Michael Cieply / New York Times:

Movies Try to Escape Cultural Irrelevance — LOS ANGELES — On Feb. 24 Hollywood will turn out for the Oscars. — But it's starting to feel as if it might be “The Last Picture Show.” — Next year's Academy Awards ceremony — the 85th since 1929 — will be landing in a pool of angst …

David Carr / New York Times:

Chasing Lance Armstrong's Misdeeds From the Sidelines — The Web is full of outliers who are constantly posting about vast conspiracies, advanced by powerful interests and enabled by the mainstream media. The truth, they say, is out there in plain sight. — Every once in a while, the outliers are right.

Discussion: Talking Biz News and The Huffington Post

Mark Sweney / Guardian:

James Murdoch reappointed as BSkyB director with 95% shareholder backing — James Murdoch has been reappointed as a director of BSkyB with the support of 95% of shareholders at the company's annual general meeting. Barring one investor labelling him as “toxic”, Thursday's BSkyB AGM …

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Wednesday Q&A: Jake Levine on the fate of News.me, personalized news, and reinventing Digg — News.me's announcement last week that it was pulling its iOS apps for iPad and iPhone surprised more than a few. For over a year, the Betaworks-backed news discovery tool has offered users …

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

The Math Behind Disney's “Star Wars” Deal — Disney is paying George Lucas $4 billion for his “Star Wars” empire. Did it get a good deal? — That all depends, of course, on whether people want to see the next three “Star Wars” movies Disney says it is lining up.

Discussion: Forbes

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

At Fox News, a Liberal Pundit Finds the Spotlight — Sally Kohn is a former community organizer who prefers baggy clothes and doesn't own a television. She, her partner and their 4-year-old daughter live in the liberal bastion of Park Slope in Brooklyn, and she recently proudly posted …

Steve Schaefer / Forbes:

Trick Or Treat For Netflix: Carl Icahn Takes Ten Percent Stake — Billionaire Carl Icahn has taken a 9.98% stake in Netflix, according to a disclosure with the SEC Wednesday. — The 13D filing says Icahn Capital owns slightly more than 5.4 million shares (worth just over $465 million at recent prices) …

Discussion: CNBC, Home Media Magazine, TechCrunch, Reuters, The Wrap and AllThingsD

Robert Andrews / paidContent:

The very long tail - how magazines could make their archives sing — If readers won't pay for this month's latest tablet magazine, will they put their hand in their pocket for a title's entire back-issue archive? — To commemorate its ninetieth birthday next year, classical music monthly Gramophone …

Discussion: gramophone.co.uk