There is some controversy in the digital publishing
world now about a new service, Google Customer Survey’s, as an alternative to a
“paywall”, especially for smaller newspapers. The Online Publishers' Association (link) sent out an email about this today. A number of smaller papers, like the New York Daily News and Texas Tribune,
use it. A visitor sees only part of a
selected article until the visitor answers a “microsurvey” question, which will
help advertisers place material on the smaller newspaper’s site effectively. “Adweek”
has an article (link) on the service, here, and says that the concept could save
digital publishing. Some businessmen, such as HDNet’s Mark
Cuban (who appears on “Shark Tank”), don’t like this idea. (Cuban’s own blog link makes amusing, sometimes inspiring reading. "Don't follow your passion, follow your effort".)
The microsurvey idea sounds important particularly in view of
the “do not track” debate. But some visitors may distrust surveys and be annoyed by them, as some "social surveys" have been associated with malware, made available with misspelled common domain names.
Google has offered a paywall service itself, called “Google
One Pass”, discussed here.
Another paywall service popular with some papers
(maybe 200 or so) is “Press+” (or Press Plus), link here.
The Wall Street Journal has a new article about paywalls from the AP, April 3, here.
The simple fact is, that in this day of increasing
sensitivity about privacy (and “do not track” options), publishing services
need to maintain a business model that can bring in revenue and keep people
employed, with benefits. It’s “simple capitalism”, but not “extreme capitalism”.
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