For some reason, I think a lot of people try to copy the model of music industry to news industry. True, there are some similarities.
1. Long time ago, people could only paid for it.
2. Not too long ago, people learned how to receive it for free, legally or illegally.
3. Both industries want users, or somebody else, pay for them, and are working on this direction.
The key point might be, it was illegal to download mp3 for free, and it is illegal now. (Most of the case.) But news articles, video, photos are now legally free online. (And you don't even need to search for it, they are just everywhere.)
There for, from downloading illegally to legally, users' utility rised. As long as the price matches the marginal utility, people might pay.
Then how can we add some value to online news, so that users will pay?
Better way of selection and organization? Google does it well, at least a great number of users think so, but Google doesn't care if it gets paid from users.
I'm still think the mp3 downloading example in China. Will Google pay news organizations, too? (Then Sung Woo's topic will be popular!)
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I wonder whether is value - real monetary value - to recommendations from readers of news. Is there a ranking model from Google Ads that could pay more for top-ranked articles, as long as they also delivered on traditional measures like unique or repeat visitors?
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