The cost of free information?
Jinfo Blog

10th September 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

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As the Economist becomes the latest newspaper to contemplate charging for all its online content, there’s timely advice from Dow Jones on the need to address the pitfalls that free information poses. The advice comes in the form of an e-book, Pay Now or Pay Later: Exposing the Hidden Costs of ‘Free’ Information (available to download at http://digbig.com/5bagsc – registration required). Setting out her stall unequivocally, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group’s Brigitte Ricou-Bellan states that ‘no price tag’ is not the same as ‘no cost’. ‘In today’s volatile marketplace... relying solely on free information can prove exceptionally costly to any knowledge-driven enterprise,’ she asserts. Illustrating the dangers, she cites the incident when an accidental link to a six year old story resulted in a temporary loss of three quarters of the share value of United Airlines’ parent UAL (covered in detail at http://www.vivavip.com/go/e11215). And she also points out that free web aggregators typically offer only the most recent version of a newswire story, whereas anyone concerned professionally with reputation management will need access to all versions in order to watch the progress of a story over time. It’s all sensible, practical advice, much of which will resonate with information managers – all the more so as Media Week reports that the Economist may be seeking to join the ranks of the chargers (http://digbig.com/5bagsd). paidContent:UK responds that this story may be a little premature – although it does go on to say that, having carved out a place for itself as a home for considered analysis and opinion, ‘if anyone can charge, Economist.com can charge’ (http://digbig.com/5bagse). Can the others? The Economist newspaper itself is not so sure. The newspapers that have built successful pay walls tend to hold virtual monopolies over news in their region, it points out in a recent article – but that wouldn’t necessarily apply in Britain, where fierce competition between national dailies probably rules out all-encompassing pay walls. It’s the niche approach adopted by titles such as News Corporation’s Wall Street Journal that’s likely to be the most successful at charging, the Economist believes. ‘A newspaper that wants to follow the Journal must produce copy that is both narrow in its appeal and useful,’ it points out (http://digbig.com/5bagsf). So will information managers be able to continue staking their reputations on free news and comment from sources that don’t meet that Economist article’s ‘narrow and useful’ criterion – or will that increasingly become a high risk strategy? As part of News Corporation, Dow Jones is hardly a disinterested party – but you can’t help feeling that Pay Now or Pay Later is a necessary softening up for the time when the free vs fee choice starts getting really tough.

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