John Paton has explained why 22 Digital First Media sites continue to experiment with paywalls despite “abysmal” results initially. We also are experimenting with Google surveys as a revenue source. The surveys are bringing in more revenue than the paywall, but both are harming traffic, John says.
Last year I said I was tired of the whole paywall argument and would stop commenting on it unless Digital First made a significant move regarding paywalls. I don’t have anything more to say on this beyond what John said and what Mathew Ingram says about John’s post.
I was wondering how Google surveys of readers were a revenue source.
Here’s how, according to
http://mashable.com/2012/03/30/google-survey-paywall/
For every response sent to Google, publishers get $0.05.
The program has launched with around 20 online publishers, including Pandora, AdWeek, the New York Daily News and the Texas Tribune.
And what happens to those survey responses? They’re collected by Google and sold to businesses seeking low-cost market research.
Google pays us to interrupt visitors to our sites with questions. And so far, that’s provided better revenue than paywalls.
So…let me get this straight. The paywalls are doing “abysmal”. So I am gonna just make the obvious leap in logic- that Digital First’s traffic and ad model is doing worse than abysmal. It is either that, or Alden Global Capital doesn’t care about money.
Journalists who make leaps make errors. As you just did.
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