WebProNews

Is the Murdoch Bing Deal Really Just About the Wall Street Journal?

After all is said and done Rupert Murdoch may still be seen as the sly old fox that really knew best. Many bloggers and journalists have pounded the insanity of Murdoch's suggestion that News Corp publications might strike an exclusive indexing deal with Bing and delist itself from Google's search engine.

Facebook Is Still In The Thoughts of Marketers

It’s always great when the mainstream media realizes (again) that something is big—like social media marketing or Facebook. The Wall Street Journal posted an article Friday on the popularity of social media marketing on Facebook. Okay, so really they were reporting about the Social Data Summit in New York Thursday.

The Latest Rumors About Razorfish

Microsoft’s interactive agency Razorfish is the subject of some varying rumors as of late. The one common thread in all of these reports is that Microsoft is shopping the company. That much we know for sure. Where they end up is the subject of much speculation.

Will Micropayments Work for the Wall Street Journal?

The Wall Street Journal Online will reportedly be launching a micropayment model for content this fall. Some other news publications appear to see this is a brilliant move, but asking people to pay for content on the web will draw its share of skepticism. WSJ Managing Editor Robert Thomson says, "It's a payments system -- once we have your details we will be able to charge you according to what you read, in particular, a high price for specialist material."

A Wild Week For Facebook, And Its Users

Facebook has had quite a week. If it is true that there is no such thing as bad publicity then this week has been a windfall for the social networking giant. I have even read some conspiracy theorists who believe that the whole terms of service ‘incident’ was intended. I’m not sure I can go there but to be honest it does make some sense.

Facebook's Terms Of Service

Yielding to pressure from it seems like just about everyone, Facebook is saying that it will make changes to the recent changes in its Terms of Service (TOS) (in other words going back to how it was). The WSJ covers the ‘event’ in their online edition.

Money for Content

The WSJ let the "our content will be free" story spread for months to generate public relations related coverage and to misdirect competitors before announcing that they are going to keep their subscription service: Mr. Murdoch made his latest comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in answering a question.

WSJ Will Not Abandon Subscription Model

If rumors are to be believed, the Wall Street Journal has been considering abandoning the subscription model for months. But alas, it’s not to be. Rupert Murdoch announced today that the Wall Street Journal, while expanding its free offerings, would not leave the subscription model. In fact, he stated that:

WSJ May Need Big Subscription Increase to Make Up Lost Revenue

The Wall Street Journal would have to increase traffic to their site by 12x to make up for the lost subscription revenue. WSJ.com is going from paid subscriptions to free online access. A report from Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang made the prediction based on advertising rates for banner ads.

News as a Commodity

In my last post about how contextual advertising targets the weak and poor, I promoted the idea of niche publishers shifting to sell niche products and services directly as a better means of monetization.