

AFP goes backwards shuts off RSS feeds - tm
http://blog.newscred.com/?p=171

======
bonaldi
"Granted AFP is not a newspaper" Ding ding ding. Newspapers, shaky though
their business model is, make money from advertising, and only indirectly from
the actual news. News wires, on the other hand, make all their money from the
news itself.

If Bloomberg had ever been insane enough to provide live data over RSS, would
it also be a "step backward" for them to come to their senses?

~~~
tm
What about the distinction between personal (google reader) and commercial
usage. I think that was the point the author was trying to make. Individuals
aren't going to pay thousands in lincense fees for their personal reading. But
there are benfits for AFP to give away (snippets only) for free - they can
monetize the traffic, drive brand awareness etc. But I guess they didn't want
the traffic.

~~~
bonaldi
Wire news is extravagantly expensive. The amount they could make from ads on
feeds is going to be a pittance in comparison.

Sure, once the big cash cow newspapers die they'll have to have a rethink, but
there are going to be bigger problems with news creation when that day
actually arrives.

------
ashleyw
RSS is just one of those things where no media person thinking in a pre-
internet world will ever understand; giving your content away, with few ways
of monetizing the readers?! Preposterous!

~~~
ibsulon
When you're selling the same content to others, perhaps it doesn't make much
sense, especially when these others repurpose this content into RSS feeds with
their own advertisments.

------
muitocomplicado
All the arguments for this change just makes me think: why did they have the
service in the first place?

