so I bought Supercoach Gold - but it seems that if I also want to have live supercoach scores during games, I now need to give the HeraldSun an additional $2.95 per week??? :x
The “pay-wall” and all this Paid content is a bit of a joke. The Herald Sun are largely blaming a drop in paper sales which means less revenue from advertising. But surely as paper sales have been dropping internet views have been increasing and so to would the cost to advertise online?? I can see a lot of casual super coach players swapping codes this year; Dream team must be rubbing their hands together.
I think you are right about the Hun pushing SC players away. They are taking a mighty big gamble on this one. It could backfire massively on them.
Why would the paywall affect supercoach players. Supercoach is still completely FREE. How many people were saying they would pay for live stats last year? I remember a fair few were saying it, now they offer it and noones happy. BTW it wont be long until every newspaper has paid content on the internet, and isnt that what we have been discussing that TS should think about implementing?
The problem with the Hun is that their monkeys are not good at actually getting the content correct, up at a reasonable time, etc. It is having to pay for a crappy service that is particularly galling.
Fine that they want to go pay per view, they should repay their news paid up customers with a better quality of investigative journalism and prompt coverage. (lol - not going to happen, it will still be cat-up-a-tree and Moomba King stories galore). But not bundling live scores in with Supercoach Gold is offensive. They were sharp when they rolled out Supercoach Gold and touted it as the "Premium Service".
No doubt at least for this year, Supercoach Gold should get a ticket to the premium service, gratis. That would get people into the swing of the new system, and would give people happiness with paying for this extra. I hear that people who have subscribed to the Australian paywall also get the Herald Sun without needing to log in again, not sure if this is just for the 2 month period, or for good. If so, then there are some writers at the Australian like Gideon Haigh who are worth reading. I'm still thankful I can read Flanigan, Connolly and Wilson for nothing though. Clearly ahead of their rivals for love of the game and insightful analysis. The Herald Sun pretty much just breaks news, does very limited thinking about the game in general. Anyone can break news. In fact, Twitter breaks news these days, and then the HS puts it on the site with a limited investigation, and then calls it premium news. I can see that is why people are concerned about the paywall. Conceptually I don't mind the concept of a pay wall, it's just paying for diluted content that doesn't hit the mark - and paying for things that are considered free or included with other bundles - that makes one think it's just one big money grab cloaked in a veneer of respectability.
Murdoch is doing it with all of his papers around the world. He told his analysts to pull the trigger the minute on line readership affected a certain decline in hard copy sales. Bthere is a loophole in their system. go onto the site, see an article that takes your fancy and copy the title into Google. You can then open the article in full through Google. I tested the Hun yesterday and the same loophole is in place.
You said it Lucas. Twitter is providing 99% of the content of "stories" the HS is locking behind the firewall. I bought an app the other day, Footy Now. One off spend of $2.95 and it not only gives live scores, but ladder, news stories from a variety of sources and tweets. I'll be seeing over the coming month whether this is a neat bundle of all AFL news I need. and Stop____Hammertime: Shhhhhhhshut-up!
<blockquote>Quote from Lucas on March 14, 2012, 08:33 Anyone can break news. </blockquote> <img src="http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/img/2010/afl/craig0503.jpg" /> The proof is in the pudding.
The funniest thing is the 'Coach Crawf' is now behind the paywall. Now that is just taking the piss. This is all moving inevitably towards 'pay to play' for SC.
(I preface my comments on this by saying I'm a journo and was in the newspaper business for a good decade or so. Doesn't mean I like journos or the media in general though) What the Herald Sun is doing - and, on a wider scale, what Rupert Murdoch is doing - will only succeed if two things are true: 1 - That the quality of the content behind the paywall - not just WHAT is there, but the QUALITY of what is there ... stuff you can't find anywhere else, insights, investgative journalism, etc - is high (and thus people will pay extra to access it). Because people aren't going to shell out for stuff they can get elsewhere, or can get better elsewhere. 2 - That the organisation has relationship with readership and standing in the community that is, at least in part, trustworthy. Because people aren't going to shell out their hard-earned for utter rubbish, lies and distortion. (And yes on the latter point I'm fully aware that some people WILL shell out for lies, distortion and agendas. They're what carnival workers call "rubes" and are the sort of people that think side show games like the open mouthed clowns and the "shoot the basketball through the hoop aren't rigged. I'm talking about the vast majority of the population that won't pay for bullshit.) On that basis - I personally can't see how a move like that the Herald Sun is doing will, in the long term, provide a boost to the bottom line. This is because most of the Herald Sun's "journalism" is just, as Lucas said, breaking news. No insight, depth, discussion, etc. People won't pay for it if they can get it better, or the same, elsewhere for free - be it via the Age, blogs, social media, etc. And given many people's dislike for Rupert Murdoch - his agendas, bias, Fox News, News of the World, etc - people really don't trust News Limited. They realise they ain't getting news, they're getting opinion, distortion, agenda, Anderw Bolt, etc. I don't care if you like Bolta or not, if you like Fox NEws or not - it ain't news, its opinion. And people who are going to shell out to get their NEWS from the Herald Sun site will want NEWS. Its like if you went and bought a telly at JB Hi Fi. If you had two tellies, both EXACTLY the same, one $600 and one $400, would anyone buy the $600 one? Of course not (except the rubes of course). Thus, if the Herald Sun offer similar content to a load of other websites who don't charge for it, will people pay for it? No. Then, if you have bought the telly, get it home, and it isn't what it promises to be - maybe it doesn't pick up digital, or the screen is scratched - would you keep it? Of course not (unless you are a rube) - you'd take it back, get your money back, buy the other telly and badmouth the dud product to everyone. Similarly - if the Herald Sun's paid content doesn't deliver what it promises - and not just now while the launch is happening, but 2 or 3 years down the track - people won't shell out and they'll badmouth the product. Personally, if I was the Age, I'd be nabbing a couple of extra footy journos and attacking the Hun where they are weakest - pumping up the footy coverage and delivering improved coverage for free. Then I'd be grabbing all the advertisers the Herald Sun has and saying: "Hey, all the good footy content is behind the paywall over there - less people are going to see it ... why don't you come over here and advertise online with us, where we are free to view and EVERYONE will be looking (abnd seeing your ads)." But in short - if the quality of the product isn't better than that available for free, and the provider can't be trusted, then people, in the long term, ain't going to shell out for it.
I agree 100% Chris, however I am hoping it is a reversion to getting what you pay for. There was a time, not that long ago when people actually bought a newspaper every day, we even had it delivered, roughly 8 or 9 bucks a week. Nobody thought it was odd, in fact it was expected, who would expect to get something for free really??? Then came the internet explosion, pushed by broadband speed, suddenly information (like much other copyrighted material) was freely available to the masses. We stopped buying the paper years ago, who needs it when you can read it for free online, ironically you would only buy it if you WANTED the ads. But I believe that ultimately you get what you pay for in life, if something stays free for long enough it becomes worthless, or so near it's stupid. That's why I subscribe to this site and any other I feel worthy of my time. I am seriously hoping that the extra revenue will allow for better content and the quality will improve, as you say if it isn't people won't continue their subscription. One thing that is clear, we live in a capitalist society and to expect businesses to provide anything for free is either stupid or idealistic, depending on your take. Wouldn't it be great if Walesy and all the quality contributors could actually make some money, or at least see some return for effort out of what is put into this site... /2c
There isn't much there you can find elsewhere anyway. Most the stuff I read comes from other sources and the HS just copies and pasts. No real fact checking etc. Plenty of people interested in writing about the football on blogs etc, and they do it for free. Just means I won't be going to HS for new anymore. newsnow.co.uk is the best source.