I wrote earlier this year that News International was rethinking its anti-social media paywall policy with regards whether it would introduce a paywall for the Sun modelled on the one employed by The Times.

It had intially been reported that The Sun would follow in the footsteps of the News of the World, which saw its traffic plummet after its paywall went live, but that turned out to be the least of its problems. Read More »

Is the News of the World the first great newspaper casualty of the Twitter age? It is something that someone said last night and I’m pretty sure there is something in it.

While there are true direct casualties of the digital age, those papers and magazines killed off by falling circulation and falling revenues, that wasn’t true of the NotW, but gone it has all the same. Read More »

The campaign against the News of the World newspaper, which has this morning led to a growing number of brands reviewing their advertising, has seen a torrent of tweets attacking the News International-owned title.

The hashtag #saynotonotw is one of the top trending topics in the UK, as consumers call for a boycott this Sunday of the News of the World, as a more formal organised online campaign against the paper is organised. Read More »

The fallout from the story that the News of the World allegedly hacked the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler could have far reaching implications for News International hitting all parts of its business including commercially as the paper’s advertisers are targeted via a Twitter campaign.

A list of News of the World advertisers have been published online with a link to a pre-prepared tweet asking if they will be reconsidering their advertising, such as this: “Dear @TheCooperative, will you be reconsidering your advertising spend with #notw given that we now know they hacked Milly Dowler’s phone?” Read More »

Interesting report on Journalism UK about News International possibly rethinking its closed, anti-social media or iron curtain, approach to its paywall. The Sun had been due to follow same paywall model employed by The Times and the News of the World.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I think this is the equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, seriously, why do it? Why have a paywall that cuts you off from the social media conversation? Read More »

News Corporation might recently have delayed The Sun’s move to paid content, in light of the disappointment with the The Times, but that is not stopping the Telegraph Media Group pushing ahead with plans to introduced a metered paywall for Telegraph.co.uk.

Marketing reports today that the Daily Telegraph website is to a unveil paid-for website in September and that it will be a metered model, which unlike The Times and its anti-social media paywall will allow articles to be freely shared online. Smart move. Read More »

A day after Apple launched its new content subscription system Google is making its play for paid content with the launch of its Google One Pass micropayment system, which will allow people to buy content on any platform from a publisher signed up.

It is being launched this afternoon in Germany and the biggest name signed up so far is Axel Springer AG and Gruner + Jahr’s Stern (for all your diary scoops).   Read More »

Beehive City is reporting that The News of the World, now bricked up behind its anti-social media paywall,  has witnessed a 38.5% drop in monthly unique visitors to its website between September and October 2010 based on comScore figures.

The News of the World paywall only went live  in mid-October so that is a particularly sharp drop as it includes half of the month when the site was still free to access. Read More »

Back in August the New York Times Company put a paywall in place at another of its daily papers and began charging readers of the Telegram & Gazette, in Worcester, Massachusetts, almost £10 a month for access to its website. Apparently visitor numbers have risen since it went in place.

If that is so then the metered model, the same as the one planned by The New York Times itself, which gives ten articles for free, is proving a success and bodes well for the future. Read More »

With the news in Marketing today, that the Daily Mirror is set to charge readers for accessing online content, a tabloid paywall war is brewing. The Mirror’s plans will coincide with those of The Sun, which is expected to put its paywall up next year following sister title the News of the World whose paywall went live last week.

Read More »