Category Archives: FT

psmith, journalist: It’s not about selling news, it’s about keeping customers

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"Forget worrying about journalism and who’s going to fund your Baghdad bureau for just a minute and ponder this: news does not sell itself. Newspapers like The Times are learning now what digital B2B titles have known for years – that making a paid-for news product work online needs a great deal of specialised marketing, promotion, management and practical know-how."

Press Gazette Editor’s Blog: The paywall debate: At the Financial Times there is no debate, it works

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"Figures released by the Financial Times yesterday revealed that it now has 149,000 paying digital subscribers. That’s nearly double the UK paid-for sale of the print edition. ... The beauty of the FT’s system is that it keeps reminding casual readers it is there by remaining part of the web ecosystem while forcing those who become devoted readers to cough up some money."

Reuters: Paywalls encroach on Alphaville

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Felix Salmon: "The fabulous Paul Murphy and Stacy-Marie Ishmael, who have been with Alphaville from the beginning, are now setting up something at even more of an arm’s length from the FT itself: “a new digital media service”, whatever that might be, called FT Tilt. It’s all quite mysterious for the time being; I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Meanwhile, the Alphaville email newsletter is disappearing behind the FT’s ever-expanding paywall: in order to receive it, you either need to be a subscriber to FT.com"

paidContent:UK: Up Is Down: FT Free On iPad, Guardian Monthly Mobile Charge?

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"The FT iPad app will be sponsored at launch by Hublot, the watchmaker, subsidising a two-month free access period ... an unnamed “senior [Guardian] executive” tells the FT about seeking more charges: 'We’ll enhance the app, and then the whole aim will be to get that on monthly subscription because it has been amazingly successful and . . . a fantastic experiment.'"

paidContent:UK: FT.com Takes Free Articles Away From Unregistered Users, Except Via Search

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"[The Financial Times is] now ensuring that no free articles are on offer to non-registered users. ... While it’s closing stories off to directly-visiting users, with First-Click-Free it’s leaving the door ajar to search visitors, however. ... FT.com is set to trial day and week payments via PayPal."

Reuters: Lessons from FT.com

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Felix Salmon on Rob Grimshaw's PaidContent presentation: "it turns out that there was at least one major financial company which was pushing all of its employees to use the Google loophole, rather than pay for a subscriptions. And when the FT asked them what they thought they were doing, the company just said well, you left the back door open, so we decided to use it. (Better that than to risk a lawsuit by sharing passwords.)"