Create Your Own Mag Online!

Online news aggregators have been hot for some time now, which is why when I read that Time Inc. is allowing readers to piece together their own publication using articles from their favorite Time magazines, I was curious how it'd look on the Web.

Some media comentators have written this off as a gimmick -- though others have already praised the effort. And the five editions I'll soon be getting are free, so in some sense it is a trial for Time, one has to assume.

What's the company's incentive? I already subscribe to Sports Illustrated, but I suppose I could fall in love with another of the company's publications that I wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise. Time will tell, and I'll check back with a review.

A Brave New World of Micropayments?

First, a quick note about why it's been exactly one month since I've posted here. Basically, I've caught the blogging bug and it's taken me elsewhere for the time being. My new blog, called "The Feed," about people in the 18-to-35 demographic is up and running on the St. Louis Beacon Web site. But I'll try to keep up my posting here as well.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog topic. Micropayments. Need I say more? Actually, probably yeah, because six months ago I wouldn't have known what that term meant for journalism -- and still many don't.

The basic idea is that the free model of online journalism isn't sustainable and that readers will come around to paying small amounts of money to read content, just as iPhone owners will happy fork out a tiny sum for new apps.

News Corp is reportedly planning to introduce such a payment plan for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal's Web site, according to Financial Times. Rupe Murdoch has done a nice 180-degree turn on the issue of charging for content. Readers historically have been open to paying for some financial news, perhaps because of the importance of getting the most up-to-date information about market trends. A new study shows that readers would be willing to pay for sports, as well.

As for the other traditional sections of the paper, well, the best advice would be this: Think of ways to add value to typical news packages. Is there supplimentary video? Can you direct readers to a landing page where similar stories around the Web are culled? Things like this that can convince an audience that publications aren't just putting up a paywall for nothing in return might be the best bet.