
Blendle – iTunes for journalism launches in the Netherlands - alexandernl
http://launch.blendle.nl/welkom/?lang=en
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danso
Hopes this succeeds...my impression of the news business is that journalists
have vastly underestimated the importance of delivery system. Newspapers had
success in the pre-Internet days, not just because of good journalism, but of
good delivery systems. There's a reason why afternoon newspapers died as
television became popular (back in 1948, there were 1,453 afternoon papers
versus 328 newspapers: [http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/02/rip-pm-
newspapers.html](http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/02/rip-pm-
newspapers.html))...it's not that people are just attracted to stellar
journalism, but the newspaper is expected to provide a useful, reliable
service (such as classifieds). Too many journalists thought that people paid
to subscribe because they, deep inside, cared about the First Amendment and
freedom of the press. Yes, some subscribers do. I pay for the New York Times
and the New Yorker because I want to support them, but there's not enough
people like me around.

And truth be told, the New Yorker's digital service is a pain in the ass. For
awhile, their user-management system was horrible (find your print magazine,
enter your name in exactly as it appears on the label) and the web-viewer is
trash, and to read it on iPad meant downloading hundreds of megabytes per
issue. I only use the digital service because it comes free with the print
subscription and would never subscribe to digital alone. Reducing friction has
been a huge factor to online subscription services in general and the news
industry has been far behind on it...hopefully the Netherlands project makes
up for that.

But even with a good subscription service, I wonder if it's too little too
late? People are now way in the habit of not paying for news. And unlike
Netflix movies or Spotify tracks, the average person doesn't get addicted to
morning news clips. Reading news is more _work_ than pleasure, and that's
always why newspapers, back in the old days, were very careful about how they
did comics, sports, and other non-news sections.

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Thomvis
I think Blendle is doing a great job regarding reducing friction. I signed up
and read my first article through the service yesterday within one minute
after somebody in my Twitter feed shared it. The per-article fee is subtracted
from my account as I read, but I can ask money back if I didn't like the
article.

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pron
It's interesting to see what this approach does for reporting, as the whole
economics of news reporting relies on bundling. You have a bureau, say, in
Paris and in Iraq. When something interesting happens in Iraq, people buy the
paper for that, and it subsidizes the Paris bureau. When something interesting
happens in Europe, it subsidies the Iraq bureau. If you let readers unbundle
the package, this would no longer work. Or would it?

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glomph
Isn't part of the reason for this that journalists need to eat even when
nothing is happening in their area?

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reinierladan
I'm in the beta program for a while now. I love being able to read articles
from different news papers without having to buy them all. Articles usually
cost about 15 to 25 cents and you can ask your money back when the article is
not what you expect it to be. This is pretty useful because the moment you
click on an article you pay for it. I haven't found this to be a problem for
now but I guess people will sometimes click without noticing. Money is being
refunded without questions asked.

The service works great on an iPad and the crew behind Blendle is really
responsive to questions. Great work.

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gatekeepr
I tried the service, and am pretty amazed. It has all dutch national
newspapers. You can scroll through the papers pages, and click (and pay) to
read the articles.

The only thing I am really missing is an indication of article length. Knowing
the length of an article beforehand will influence my selection, since I
prefer (longer) background articles.

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Raykin
Myjour ([https://myjour.com](https://myjour.com)) is providing kind of same
services with a different angle. The article is the main subject, instead of
newspaper or magazine. Individual articles can be bought from newspapers,
magazines, authors as well as several international publishers.

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diedsj
this is an amazing service!!

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fireworks10
Seems expensive, $0.10 to read an article?

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NietTim
Have you ever bought a news paper?

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LunaSea
I'm going to be the devil's advocate for a second and ask the hard question:
"Why would you ?".

In an age where the level of connectivity and communication is so high, most
content can be found on the Internet and that before the newspaper is printed.

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timjver
Newspapers aren't really about being the first to inform people about
something that has happened, but more about being very informative, well-
written, objective and complete. Many articles are somewhat timeless, anyways.

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dublinben
You have an incredibly idealistic view of newspapers. I don't think they've
ever lived up to those principles, especially not now.

