All posts tagged: paywall

Boston Globe paywall strategy: Chief commercial officer interview

Boston Globe paywall strategy: Chief commercial officer interview

Published by Sam

Boston Globe office. Picture: Craig F Walke Like so many regional media brands, the Boston Globe nearly went out of business in 2009 after the financial crash. Today it stands out as an exemplar of how journalism can not just survive but thrive in the digital age. In the latest Press Gazette Future of Media Explained podcast, the title’s chief commercial officer Kayvan Salmanpour explained how the multi-Pulitzer Prize-winning title carried off an evolution many other regional publishers have struggled to replicate. The episode, which was sponsored by digital publishing platform Quintype, also featured insight from that company’s vice president of international partnerships Chad Hussain. Privately-owned Boston Globe Media does not publish financial results but today has close to 1,000 employees, with 261,000 digital subscriptions and 75,000 in print. London’s main news publisher, the Standard, is believed to have somewhere between 100-150 staff left after moving to free weekly publication last month and it has made seven straight years of losses. The reported GDP of the greater Boston area (at around $500bn) is only slightly …

New York Times adds new strand to bundle with podcast paywall

New York Times adds new strand to bundle with podcast paywall

Published by Sam

Picture: The New York Times The New York Times will this month begin drawing its popular podcasts behind its online subscriptions barrier. Listeners will be able to pass through the paywall if they have a New York Times news, All Access or NYT Audio login. And for the first time it will also be possible to purchase an audio-only subscription directly through third-party hosting platforms. New York Times head of subscription growth Ben Cotton told Press Gazette the launch hopes to find revenue in previously untapped audiences – and lure new subscribers into its All Access bundle. “What we’ve seen is that we have millions of listeners who continue to engage with us exclusively on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or another third-party platform,” Cotton said. “We see it as a natural evolution to extend subscription rules and offerings that we started to put in place on our own products to third-party platforms.” Thanks for subscribing. Close The New York Times already has its own paywalled audio app, NYT Audio, which is accessible to anyone with …

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

TechCrunch Minute: Spotify’s move to paywall lyrics is putting pressure on free users

Published by skeptic

Spotify’s slow movement to put lyrics behind its paid service wall in its music service are about as popular as you would expect. Precise details of the update are evolving but what we can say at this point is that it seems that Spotify has a new feature up its sleeve to try and get free users to convert to is paid service. The why behind the move matters more than the what. Sure, it’s a little weird that Spotify is going to start putting information that is freely available online behind a paid wall, but the company is in a slightly difficult position today. Thanks to an early start and attractive pricing, Spotify is huge. It does billions in revenue, and helped shake up the music industry for good. That said, it largely offers paid access to other peoples’ music. Other companies do the same. Apple is one of them. That means that Spotify’s pricing power is modest at best. Features like its yearly music review are neat, but don’t allow Spotify to charge more …

Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall

Spotify starts hiding song lyrics behind paywall

Published by skeptic

Spotify’s free tier has just gotten a little worse. The company recently put yet another popular feature behind its Spotify Premium paywall: song lyrics. As noticed by numerous users on Reddit (via Android Authority), to see song lyrics you now need to have a Spotify Premium subscription, which starts at $10.99 ($5.99 for students). Some users are reporting that song lyrics aren’t completely unavailable on the free tier; instead, there’s a monthly limit on lyrics for non-Premium subscribers. Mashable Light Speed Tweet may have been deleted Spotify’s free tier doesn’t cost anything, but it contains ads, and doesn’t let users download or play songs in any order, among other limitations. On the flip side, the company also increased the prices of its Premium subscription tiers, with reports claiming that it’s going to get even more expensive this year. SEE ALSO: How to download songs from Spotify For comparison, Apple Music does not offer a free tier, and neither does Tidal (there used to be a free Tidal tier, but it was recently canceled). YouTube Music …

Google reportedly considers paywall for enhanced AI-powered search capabilities

Google reportedly considers paywall for enhanced AI-powered search capabilities

Published by skeptic

Google is exploring the idea of introducing “premium” features powered by generative AI to its search engine. This potential shift, as per The Financial Times, marks the first time Google would place AI-generated elements of its core search functionality behind a paywall, signaling a significant pivot from its traditional ad-supported model. For nearly two decades, Google has dominated the search engine market, providing free access to information while generating revenue through advertisements. However, the advent of generative AI technologies, epitomized by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has prompted Google to reconsider its strategy. ChatGPT’s ability to deliver concise, complete answers poses a direct challenge to the conventional search engine format, which relies on directing users to external websites, including those of advertisers. Google’s response to this competitive pressure has been twofold. The company began testing an AI-powered search service that offers more detailed answers to user queries while maintaining the traditional model of presenting links and advertisements. This “Search Generative Experience” (SGE), still in an experimental phase, leverages AI to provide “AI-powered snapshots” of information, …

Mail Online publisher Danny Groom explains partial paywall revenue strategy

Mail Online publisher Danny Groom explains partial paywall revenue strategy

Published by skeptic

Mail Online editor and publisher Danny Groom and Thomas Lowe, director of digital reader revenue. Pictures: DMG Media Mail Online is building on a “great position of strength” from its “huge, loyal, engaged, direct audience” with the launch of a partial paywall, according to its editor/publisher Danny Groom. Groom told Press Gazette that Mail Online’s strong direct readership makes it “the envy of the publishing world” and presented an opportunity to deepen relationships with those people. He said: “It’s a tough time in the industry, of course, but I think people here recognise that being able to invest and to launch new products and to diversify is our way of future-proofing.” On Tuesday (23 January) Mail Online began rolling out its new Mail+ subscription service to all UK users, who can sign up to get up to 15 premium articles per day plus a curated “Best of The Mail” weekly newsletter for £4.99 per month. Related The Daily Mail’s app, formerly called Mail+, was previously the home of premium content and is now called Mail+ …

TikTok expands its ‘Series’ paywall feature to more creators

TikTok expands its ‘Series’ paywall feature to more creators

Published by skeptic

Previously only available to select content creators, TikTok’s Series feature is now available to users in 94 countries. The feature allows creators to lock a “series” of exclusive content behind a paywall. Series was first announced back in March, letting users earn up to $190 on their collection of videos. Creators can also make longer videos—up to 20 minutes long. Meanwhile, regular TikTok videos have a 10-minute limit. One Series can include 80 videos or less. To qualify for the monetization feature, creators must meet a number of requirements. For instance, they must be 18 years or older, live in one of the select regions, have 10,000 followers and have a 30-day-old account. Plus, they must have posted three public videos and reached 1,000 views in the last 30 days. If the user has repeatedly violated TikTok’s Community Guidelines, they can’t qualify. In some cases, TikTok creators can go around the 10,000-follower minimum. Creators with 1,000 followers can still apply, however, they have to share a link to premium content they’ve sold via other platforms. …

Citymapper lowers the paywall for premium features but keeps monthly subscription for removing ads

Citymapper lowers the paywall for premium features but keeps monthly subscription for removing ads

Published by skeptic

Citymapper is lowering the paywall around its premium features and introducing a new subscription plan purely for removing ads. The move comes less than two months after the popular transit and travel planning app was scooped up by mobility tech company Via. London-based Citymapper, which offers city-dwellers real-time transport and routing information across hundreds of cities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas,  has dabbled with various ways of monetizing through the years, including through a paid bus service, a multi-transport transport subscriptions, and an enterprise offering. Then back in September, the company launched a new subscription-based service that removed ads from the app and introduced a slew of premium features, including lock-screen navigation, bus-only routes and turn-by-turn voice navigation. Costing £2.99 a month or £19.99 a year, Citymapper Club, as the service is called, was evidently not enough to salvage the business as Via swooped in to buy the company six months later, in what was widely regarded as a firesale (though no acquisition price was ever confirmed). Citymapper: Premium features are now free Image Credits: …