FCC club lunch with Gordon CROVITZ
Speaker: Gordon CROVITZ
Co-founder, Journalism Online
Topic: “Can Journalism Make Money On The Web?”
It has now been 15 years since news publishers launched their Web sites. At that time, publishers had a hard choice: Should they make their Web sites free or put them behind pay walls? Most publishers decided to make their Web sites free. Now, new technology gives publishers the chance to have the best of both worlds, with a “freemium” model so that most visitors to Web sites will continue to get free access, but the most engaged users will be asked to pay for unlimited access.
Gordon CROVITZ will describe how this new approach is already succeeding for many publishers, while The New York Times has announced it will adopt this approach early next year. As a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, he will also discuss how paid approaches on the Web create new revenue streams tied directly to the distinctive journalism that reporters create. New digital editions such as iPad applications create new revenue opportunities, even beyond the Web. These new revenues give editors strong arguments to rebuild depleted news rooms–some rare good news for the business of journalism.
Gordon CROVITZ is co-founder of Journalism Online, a New York-based company whose Press+ technology enables publishers around the world to charge for access to their Web sites as well as to their tablet, mobile and e-reader editions. Mr. CROVITZ is a former publisher of The Wall Street Journal. He was editor and publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review and lived in Hong Kong during the 1990s.