Online Journalism - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

‘Undertakings of Great Advantage’ 165
Since readily accessible news archives, the first drafts of history,
draw readerships so effectively then clearly advertising space in this
new medium might, at moments of peak traffic, carry premium
rates. Much of the commentary on Judge Hervé Stéphan’s September
1999 ruling on the causes of Princess Diana’s death, for instance,
carried links to the extensive reporting of the event itself in 1997.
The web has also transformed photographs and other images into
retail consumer items with companies such as Bill Gates’ Corbis
licensing images for non-commercial uses such as home pages or
school projects at $3 per image while retaining the full market rate
for commercial applications.
Until workable ‘digital cash’ systems appeared, allowing
consumers to give their credit information to transactions clearing
houses which would aggregate payments to suppliers and charges to
consumers, the idea of ‘micropayments’ was not able to progress.
Furthermore, when it did arrive, the whole notion of micropayments
would have a radical impact on the way in which news providers and
consumers understood content. A newspaper such as The Times
might contain, on average, well over a hundred items not including
advertisements. Subsidised by that advertising we routinely pay
substantially under £1 for the whole package. Even at a micropayment
of two pence per item the cost of the newspaper would more
than double for readers but, of course, they will not want the whole
paper. Even for free content online consumers are more discriminating
than readers of print news and access only those parts of the
online edition that most interest them, perhaps 10 per cent or so of
the whole. For consumers to click the button enabling payment
options they have to be sure that the item is of value to them. Free
access to headlines, section indices, lists of content and leading paragraphs
or abstracts might allow the effective negotiation of those
reader decisions.
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition has also experimented
with a daily ‘pass’ paid for through microtransaction. In 1999 this
cost $1.95 to the print edition’s 75 cents. As with other microtransaction
models, any market in which the electronic edition costs
more than twice as much as the print one seems to make a nonsense
of the much touted ‘benefits’ of online news for consumers.
A more effective way of encouraging readers to extend their use of
sites charging for individual features and articles might be to link or