Local newspapers may actually have an easier time charging for content than national and international news brands like the New York Times (NYSE: NYT). And what’s the biggest threat to paid music? Well, probably not piracy. These were among the assertions by panelists on paidContent2010’s The Truth About Subscriptions, who included Steve Brill, co-founder of Journalism Online, David Hyman, CEO of MOG, and Jeff Price, president and publisher of The Sporting News. Price also offered some details on his new subscription plan. The panel was moderated by Staci D. Kramer.

Full uncut session

Posted on 12 March 2010 | 10:21 pm

The Financial Times has a sizeable and nicely growing subscription business—so why mess with micropayments? FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw says that half the FT’s print customers are newsstand buyers, and the company needs to offer an similar a la carte option online as well. Grimshaw, in an interview with ContentNext Media Managing Editor Ernie Sander, also explores about what the company has learned about its readers from its “data warehouse,” and how it has used that information to help convert some of those readers into customers.

Two other panelists at paidContent2010’s The Business of Digital News session, KC Estenson, CNN.com’s SVP and GM, and Lincoln Millstein, Hearst’s SVP of digital media, talked about the opportunities that apps and e-devices present for publishers looking for new revenue streams. Josh Cohen, Google’s senior business product manager, meanwhile, explains why news organizations that blame on Google (NSDQ: GOOG) are shooting the messenger. See highlights of the panel below.

Posted on 11 March 2010 | 3:55 am

People love to debate the merits of free vs. paid content. But overlooked in all this is the cost of access to that content—that’s where the action is. We’re paying more than we ever have to receive our movies, news and music, according to Forrester analyst James McQuivey. Here’s his full presentation on what we’re consuming, what we’re paying for it, and what that means for content companies. He delivered the talk at our recent paidContent2010 conference.

Posted on 2 March 2010 | 9:25 am

Mail.com Media Corp, the owner of Nikki Finke’s Deadline.com and other portals, has finally closed and announced its JV deal in India, after working on it for a year: it has tied up with Indian media conglom Zee Entertainment, and will launch a local Indian portal later this year, the two companies announced. What wasn’t announced: that the portal will be on a rather memorable domain, India.com, we have learned. MMC bought the domain last year and plans to use that to compete in the country against bigger portals like Rediff (NSDQ: REDF), Indiatimes, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), MSN, Sify and others. The JV has appointed Arvindra Singh Kanwal, most recently Chief Revenue Officer at local SMS community service SMSGupshup, as the CEO. Prior to that, Kanwal was Chief Revenue Officer at Rediff.com.

It won’t be easy going in light of local competition, Zee’s own lack of digital mojo over the years, and most importantly, the mechanics of running a multi-continent JV. Plus the fact that stateside, MMC and its founder Jay Penske has to sort out its own expansion and funding plans after its acquisitions in the last year, including Finke’s Deadline and bringing in Bonnie Fuller to develop HollywoodLife as a celeb portal.

Posted on 25 February 2010 | 12:11 am

For nearly 40 minutes, top executives from The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT) took questions from interviewer Staci D. Kramer, co-editor and EVP of ContentNext Media, and participants in paidContent 2010. Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman and publisher; Janet Robinson, president and CEO; and Martin Nisenholtz, SVP-digital operations, knew the interest would be intense but while they were willing to buy lunch, they weren’t ready to feed the appetite for detail about plans for NYTimes.com to go metered in 2011. Instead, much of the focus was on strategy. Sulzberger insisted the new model isn’t intended to choke off traffic and new users, while Nisenholtz said the challenge is creating a model that charges while growing advertising—and Robinson tried very hard to convince people a meter isn’t a paywall. The Q&A includes exchanges with The Guardian‘s Emily Bell; Slate’s Jacob Weisberg and Reuters’ Felix Salmon.

Posted on 23 February 2010 | 2:24 am

This past Friday we had our first paidContent 2010 conference at NYC’s TheTimesCenter . During the jam-packed day we had a special lunchtime Q&A with The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Company’s Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Janet Robinson and Martin Nisenholtz, and talked all things digital news, subscription models, big-media joint ventures and much more. Some highlights:

—@pc2010: NYT Metered Model Is Designed To Preserve Reach And Grow Ad Revs
—@pc2010: Yahoo’s Schneider On What The Microsoft Deal Means: ‘More Money’
—@pc2010: ‘Paid Services’ Coming To Reuters.com
—@pc2010: ‘Farm’ Talk With The Content Distributors
—@pc2010: FT.com’s Grimshaw: News Readers Are Willing To Pay—At Least For A Day
—Video @ paidContent 2010: New York Times Execs On Metered News And More

The rest can be seen in our paidContent 2010 archive.

Many thanks to everyone who took part (in person and virtually through Livestream) and a special thanks to our paidContent 2010 sponsors: Platinum: Oracle; Gold: Rubicon Project, Gigya, RR Donnelley and Lunch: The New York Times

Posted on 22 February 2010 | 3:48 pm

The big story the past few months on the subject of paid content is the NYTCo’s announcement that it would pursue a metered model for its website. Our Staci D. Kramer put the basic question to top NYTCo (NYSE: NYT) execs during the first afternoon session at paidContent2010, which is being held in the publisher’s own house on 41st St.: what’s the goal of the metered plan coming next year? And what’s the danger of closing the site off to new readers and the attendant ad revenues:

—Janet Robinson, President & CEO: The metered solution is an elegant solution. We look at this as a way to continue to have a robust ad sales and paid audience. We said it will take everything we need to do in terms of getting the technology in place.

Posted on 22 February 2010 | 11:39 am

SinglePoint is acquiring India-based M2Junction, which has developed a text-messaging mobile advertising platform. The purchase comes just a week after the Bellevue, Wash. company sold off off a piece of its business to Ericsson and announced a new CEO. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SinglePoint said the acquisition enables it to enter the Indian mobile advertising market, by serving content owners, mobile operators and brands agencies. M2Junction is based in Dallas with significant operations in Hyderabad, India. In a release, SinglePoint’s new CEO Gowri Shankar, said: “India is the fastest growing SMS market in the world with an incredible mobile advertising opportunity…M2Junction has been SinglePoint’s preferred global partner and is a perfect collaborator for our entry to India.”

Posted on 11 February 2010 | 12:37 pm

Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which shook up the e-mail industry when it integrated chat with e-mail, is now trying to catch up to its rivals by letting Gmail users share status updates. The WSJ reports that Google will soon add a “new module that will allow Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with.” If it catches on, that could potentially add a new force to the Twitter-dominated microblogging world, considering that Gmail had 132 million unique users worldwide as of last March (the last figures I could quickly get my hands on).

Posted on 9 February 2010 | 6:09 am

Ustream, the popular online live broadcasting service, just announced it has raised $75 million in a second round of funding led by Softbank. Updated: The actual funding is only $20 million, for now, with an option for Softbank to purchase more of Ustream by July 2011, by putting in another $55 million.

The company says it will use the cash in part to pursue opportunities in Japan, China, Korea and India, where it says there is an untapped market for live streaming video. There are lots of other players in the live broadcasting space, but Ustream is the biggest player, with about 50 million unique users a month (By contrast, Justin.tv says it has about 41 million unique users, while Livestream says it has about 17 million).

With the new funding, Ustream will also now have a big funding lead over its competitors. In total, it will have now raised more than $86 million, including $11.1 million in a first round from Doll Capital Management and Band of Angels in April 2008. Even more cash could be coming, since the company says “additional funding commitments are pending.”

Posted on 3 February 2010 | 5:20 am

Geoff Cook is the CEO of myYearbook, a social network built around meeting new people. He also founded EssayEdge and ResumeEdge and sold them to The Thomson Corporation.

You can’t go an entire day without encountering Facebook and Twitter – even if you don’t have an account. Whether you ride the subway or take the bus, you’ll see people young and old updating their status or talking about the latest social-networking drama. If you watch the television or listen to the radio, you’ll be driven to the Twitter or Facebook accounts of celebrities, brands and non-profits. If you do come across the rare people who are not on Facebook, they sound like cavemen – and they know it; they are talking about signing up soon. In such an environment, it is easy to conclude that this dominance will last forever.

But it won’t. 

Posted on 2 February 2010 | 10:49 pm

It was a surprising weekend for those of us who had naively imagined that after crossing the River iPad, we might actually get some Elysian rest. But, alas, the fates conspired against us and handed us the curious case of Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) vs. Macmillan. Or Macmillan vs. Amazon?

For those who actually took the weekend off, let me summarize what happened. John Sargeant, the CEO of Macmillan Books, gave Amazon a wee-bit of an ultimatum: switch from a wholesale sell-through model, where Amazon buys digital books at a fixed wholesale rate and then can choose to sell those books at whatever price it deems appropriate (even at a loss, as it does with $9.99 bestsellers), to an agency model, where Amazon agrees to sell at a price set by the publisher in exchange for a 30% agency fee.

Posted on 2 February 2010 | 10:49 pm

SMS GupShup has raised $12 million to help build out its texting-based mobile-phone communities in India. The company, which has operations in both Santa Clara, Calif. and Mumbai, India, claims to serve 26 million users in roughly two million topics, ranging from religious groups to sports teams.

The fourth round of capital was led by Globespan Capital Partners; existing investors Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners also participated. To date, the company has raised $37 million. SMS GupShup will rely on advertising from brands such as Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Puma, Cadbury and others, to bring the company to profitability this year. The money will be used to expand into the Philippines and Indonesia, and to grow the organization to 150 employees by adding another 20 positions in marketing, engineering and sales.

Posted on 21 January 2010 | 5:07 am

Google has confirmed yesterday’s reports - YouTube has inked rights from the big-money Indian Premier League’s (IPL) licensing partner Global Cricket Ventures to live-stream all 60 matches of the 45-day tournament, starting March 12.

It’s YouTube’s first deal to live-stream a big global sport - no mere domestic competition, IPL is the largest cricket tournament in the world, forecast to generate $1.6 billion over 10 years. But the deal will include a US blackout because “re-broadcast options will be available” will be available there, the announcement says.

Indeed, just as the International Olympic Committee hosted Beijing 2008 highlights on YouTube for countries which had no television deal, this looks like a gap-plugging, market-building deal, rather than a win of top-tier rights for Google (NSDQ: GOOG). DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) aired last year’s IPL in the U.S. on its $149-a-year Cricket Ticket, and Setanta Sports had shown IPL in the UK but has now collapsed…

Posted on 20 January 2010 | 11:59 pm

Is the super-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition about to go global in a deal with YouTube? Several reports from Indian media say Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and the Bord of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will on Wednesday announce a live streaming deal.

YouTube had already hosted match highlights for last year’s second IPL season on an existing channel. YouTube has already been testing large-scale live events like a U2 concert and was on Tuesday due to stream the IPL’s pre-season “auction”, in which some 51 players will swap teams.

India’s Sony (NYSE: SNE) Entertainment Television and Singaporean World Sport Group jointly hold domestic and global IPL broadcast rights respectively in a $1.2 billion, 10-year deal, and have re-sold to a patchwork of global players. Willow TV holds North America internet rights.

Posted on 20 January 2010 | 5:08 am

Alok Kejriwal is CEO and co-founder of the online gaming company games2win.com. He blogs at rodinhood.com.

In October of last year alone, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) attracted 605 million unique Internet users (50% of the global Internet population), got them to return another 18 times, stick around for 9.5 minutes during their visit and generate over 100 billion page views.  Which traditional media brand do you know that achieved this?

We all have experienced Yahoo – it’s all about seeing and interacting (vs. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) that’s all about searching and clicking). If Google taught the world all about “performance advertising,” Yahoo can create even a bigger impact in display advertising by deeply integrating with the world’s leading brands. It has the heft to create a new paradigm of how display ads are bought, priced and really made profitable for the spenders.

Yahoo could begin this journey by acquiring WPP – the custodian and best friend of the world’s leading brands:

Posted on 15 January 2010 | 2:44 am

As you may have noticed recently on our pages, we’ve launched a new video section, with help from Vodpod. The section pulls together interesting daily videos from third-party sources, our own video interviews, and video from our conference and events. We hope you’ll take a look around and let us know what you think. Recently added videos include the full array of footage of Google’s new Nexus One phone, long interviews with Gerald Levin and Steve Case on the 10th anniversary of the ill-fated AOL-Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) deal, and a PBS report on the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) books controversy.

Advertisers: If you’re interested in video sponsorships on our video page or elsewhere on our sites, please email our advertising team at advertising AT contentnext.com.

Posted on 7 January 2010 | 2:17 am

If 2009 in the digital-media world needed a title, you could argue it would likely be something to the effect of: “Social media goes mainstream.” Indeed, it’s no secret that social media is a huge force these days, but big questions remain about how companies – even the biggest, buzziest players – are going to make money. ContentNext, Media Industry Newsletter and The Jordan, Edmiston Group have co-produced a new report that helps shed light on that debate. The report, six months in the making, not only chronicles all the deal activity in social media over the last 18 months, but also includes:

* Profiles of a select group of digital brands, including how they’re faring and their strategies and likely challenges moving ahead

* A points-of-view section featuring contributions from thought leaders like Samir Arora (Glam Media), and Mitchell Berman (ZillionTV) and Domenic Venuto (Razorfish)

* Deep analysis of traffic metrics

The 200-plus-page book, available in either print or digital versions, is the second annual “State of Digital Media” report.

Visit our reports page to read the full report.

Posted on 7 January 2010 | 1:43 am

Better late than never? Amazon today has started to sell the Kindle DX, the larger of its e-readers, outside the U.S. The launch comes three months after the smaller device went on sale internationally, and nearly two years after the first of the devices hit the U.S. market.

Like the smaller-sized Kindle, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) has opted to run the DX on mobile networks from AT&T’s roaming partners, rather than cut deals with operators country-by-country. Not yet clear which UK networks are AT&T (NYSE: T) roaming partners or what those deals look like. “We’re not providing additional details beyond our relationship with AT&T, since it’s seamless to our customers – no annual contract, no monthly fees, no hunting for a hotspot,” is how one Amazon.co.uk spokesperson put it to us.

Posted on 7 January 2010 | 12:43 am

We wish the father of the internet had said that!

But there’s no Santa Claus behind that white beard - his proclamation comes courtesy of Cassette Boy’s naughty re-edit of Digital Revolution, a four-part BBC Two documentary coming in 2010.

Posted on 24 December 2009 | 12:02 am