Facts are sacred, comment is free?
Jinfo Blog

14th August 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

Item

Little more than a month after the Newspaper Licensing Agency announced eClipsweb, the FT – which declined to participate in the NLA scheme – is to launch its own clippings service. Keeping the NLA at arm’s length (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e21244) the FT’s new service will enable users to set up a clippings list, save articles and share their lists – while premium subscribers will also be able to save non-FT content (http://digbig.com/5baege). FT.com also seized the opportunity of this announcement to crow a bit about its access model. It’s now acquired 1.4 million registered users, up from a million in January, with an 18% growth in subscriber numbers in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago. As Penny Crossland has reported (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22692) it’s now also considering introducing an iTunes type pay-per-view model for its articles using micropayment methods, and may even be wondering whether it needs to provide any content free at all. And it’s been on the acquisitions trail over the last year or so, netting a string of expert niche information providers (http://digbig.com/5baegf). Every niche acquisition further consolidates the FT as the must-have one stop shop that it effectively always has been – and of course reinforces its case for a fully charged-for service. But the FT also seems to be acting as a cheer leader for online charging by all news media (see for example http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22056, or the interview with FT editor Lionel Barber reported by paidContent:UK at http://digbig.com/5baegg). Here it may be on shakier ground so far as discriminating information professionals are concerned. Because news – the facts that stimulate the comment – is as about as containable within a paywall as cockroaches in a string bag. As a recent survey by FreePint for information provider J J Keller revealed, it’s the free stuff that’s currently tiding cash-strapped information managers over (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e20979). Whatever the news, infopros can work on the principle that someone, somewhere, really wants you to know it – and that those people are naturally not going to make you pay. So that leaves the comment and analysis. Depending on the expertise, reputation and track record of the commentator, there may end up being no option but to pay for that – but it will still need to be something pretty special. Take the dedicated comparison shopper’s bible, Which? magazine. It has almost the same number of subscribers as the FT (http://digbig.com/5baegh), and – like the FT – it has nurtured a concentration of extraordinary expertise that it would be difficult for a competitor to replicate cost-effectively. But these two, and a few others, may be the exceptions that prove the rule. For resourceful information managers, this should offer some degree of reassurance.

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