Google introduces option for five-a-day free click limit

Google is to allow publishers to limit free access to content found via Google News, it announced in a blog post yesterday.

Publishers using restricted access systems will be able to prevent Google News users looking at more than five pages of content a day without registration or subscription.

In the post, Google said:

“We’re happy to see that a number of publishers are already using First Click Free [a system allowing very first article view by a Google News user] we’ve found that some who might try it are worried about people abusing the spirit of First Click Free to access almost all of their content.

“As most users are generally happy to be able to access just a few pages from these premium content providers, we’ve decided to allow publishers to limit the number of accesses under the First Click Free policy to five free accesses per user each day.

“This change applies to both Google News publishers as well as websites indexed in Google’s Web Search. We hope that this encourages even more publishers to open up more content to users around the world!”

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Arianna Huffington on the desperation of Journalism 2009

Full text of Arianna Huffington’s ‘Desperate metaphors, desperate revenue models, and the desperate need for better journalism’ speech, made at a Federal Trade Commission event in Washington DC – at this link. An extract:

“So now sites that aggregate the news have become, in the words of Rupert Murdoch and his team, ‘parasites,’ ‘content kleptomaniacs,’ ‘vampires,’ ‘tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internets,’ and, of course, thieves who ‘steal all our copyright.’

“It’s the news industry equivalent of ‘your mama wears army boots!’ Although, not quite as persuasive.

“In most industries, if your customers were leaving in droves, you would try to figure out what to do to get them back. Not in the media. They’d rather accuse aggregators of stealing their content.”

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Guardian launches crowdsourced investigation into Tony Blair’s finances

Part crowdsourcing, part competition, the Guardian is asking readers to help them analyse financial structures set up by the former prime minister Tony Blair, which involve artificial partnerships.

The new project is similar to that run by the newspaper during the MPs expenses scandal, when readers where asked to look through and flag up points of interest on expenses claim forms.

This time there’s a competition element too: readers are asked to trawl through relevant documents and make comments and annotations. Featured contributions will be credited and readers will have the chance to win an origial cartoon by Steve Bell (deadline is 6 December).

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#WANIndia2009: Les Hinton tells newspapers – ‘Beware geeks bearing gifts’

Unsurprisingly Les Hinton, CEO of Dow Jones and part of the Murdoch empire, launched an impassioned attack on free content and Google yesterday as part of his speech to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) conference.

Hinton criticised the promise of the internet (‘the false gospel of the web’) and while describing Google as an everyday wonder, said the search engine is at the heart of the crisis faced by newspapers:

“We were promised that eyeballs meant advertising, clicks meant cash. Free costs too much. News is a business and we should not be afraid to say it,” said Hinton.

“These digital visionaries tell people like me that we just don’t understand them. They talk about the wonders of the interconnected world, about the democratization of journalism. The news, they say, is viral now – that we should be grateful. Well, I think all of us need to beware of geeks bearing gifts.Here we are in 2009 – more viral, less profitable.”

Hinton was previously responsible for News International’s newspapers including the Sunday Times, which will introduce charging online next year. He said the industry itself was ‘the principal architect of its greatest difficulty’ for surrendering its content to aggregators and search engines for free – sentiments echoing Murdoch in Beijing only months ago.

Speech reproduced courtesy of WAN and Scribd.

All coverage of #WANIndia2009 from Journalism.co.uk can be found at this link.

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#FollowJourn: @jackieannett/editor and freelancer

#FollowJourn: Jackie Annett

Who? Editor and freelance journalist.

What? Editor of InDesign magazine, a B2B publication for architects and interior designers.

Where? More about her work can be found on www.jackieannett.co.uk.

Contact? Email jackie_annett [at] hotmail.com.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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• #followjourn: @chriscondron/head of digital strategy

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – tool for monitoring Twitter

Twitter: Twittercamp offers an alternative to tools such as Tweetdeck for monitoring different Twitter accounts, Twitter searches and replies etc. Highly customisable, you can fine tune it to follow multiple kewords. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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#WANIndia2009: Making money – ‘Our world is not only editorial, it feeds business’

Some interesting examples of how publishers are branching out into e-commerce were given at this morning’s opening session of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN)/World Editors Forum (WEF) conference by Iñaki Palacios and Francisco Amaral, directors of design firm Cases I Associats.

The pair advocated ‘monetising the channel not the content’ when it comes to charging online and looking at how e-commerce can be brought in.

Italian sports newspaper La Gazetta dello Sport, for example, has recently launched Gazzatown: an online shop that requires registration, which originally sold football goods but now has expanded to other sports products.

“Our world is not only editorial it feeds business,” said deputy editor, Gianni Valenti in a video clip in the presentation.

“Having a strong brand name gives a guarantee – it is the only way of overcoming fears that people have of buying online.”

Neatly illustrating his point, Valenti said adding a newly-signed football player’s shirt shortly after his transfer has been announced during the transfer window was particularly important, for example.

Elsewhere People.com‘s editorial team has produced videos featuring style tips and filled its online shop with related purchases – for example, highstreet clothing matching a celebrity’s outfit.

All coverage of #WANIndia2009 from Journalism.co.uk can be found at this link.

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PPA Independent Publisher Awards 2009

Journalism.co.uk is at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards 2009 today: entrepreneurialism is the theme of the week it seems, with James Caan of Dragon’s Den fame presenting the prizes.

First though, a question time panel led by Guy Browning (writer, Smokehouse founder and radio presenter) with Mark Frith, TimeOut editor; Graham Stuart, Conservative MP; Rob Grimshaw, MD FT.com; Clive Foskett, CEO Signature Publishing; Steve Gilroy, CEO Vistage International.

More to follow… Follow #ipa09 for occasional tweets via @journalismnews.

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#FollowJourn: @jwatson1/freelancer

#FollowJourn: Jonathan Watson

Who? Freelance journalist.

What? Specialising in law, business, technology and media. He has also written about the voluntary sector.

Where? Also writes a blog on his personal website.

Contact? On Twitter he’s @jwatson1 or email jwatson1 [at] gmail.com.

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips every day, we’re recommending journalists to follow online too. They might be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to judith or laura at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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• #followjourn: @chriscondron/head of digital strategy

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – follow #newsrw for multimedia and community tips

Want the latest multimedia and community journalism tips? Follow the tag #newsrw on Twitter for Journalism.co.uk’s news:rewired updates. Tipster: Judith Townend.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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