

Ask HN: Who is innovating business models for media content? - inquisitive

Hi HN,<p>I'm a student journalist writing an article on innovative business models for media content. There's been quite a lot of destruction of old business models in the last 10-15 years, and ads aren't making up for content being online for free. I'm examining some of the sites that experimenting with new ideas/models. Please let me know if I'm missing any top innovators in this space!<p>I'm focusing on paywalls/subscriptions, voluntary/mandatory micropayments, and advocacy/pro-active journalism services.<p>The sites/organizations I'm covering so far:<p>WSJ &#38; Dow Jones Local Media Group newspapers (metered paywall)<p>NY Times (metered paywall proposed)<p>Financial Times (day/week Paypal micropayments)<p>Kachingle [distribute monthly fee to sites you support]<p>Flattr [distribute monthly fee to content you like]<p>Fraxion Payments [wordpress micropayments plugin] (interviewed co-founder)<p>JournalismOnline.com (Press Plus) -- interviewed spokesperson. [Press Plus has 1,400 letters of intent from newspapers in U.S., offering publishers 16 charging options]<p>Spot.Us -- proactive crowd-funded journalism, non-profit.<p>ProPublica -- proactive advocacy journalism non-profit, just won Pulitzer.<p>Wikileaks -- (I interviewed Julian Assange, editor) donation-supported non-profit that specializes in leaked information disclosure, controversial, behind recent Iraq video<p>Peer News -- for-profit, business model unannounced, but moving away from article format to more wiki/community powered.<p>Thanks so much, my hope is to provide a quality overview of the change happening in this industry. Will post article link when published.
Jeremy
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_delirium
This is sort of a meta-comment, but one thing I'd love to see is a good survey
of how the current crop of innovation differs from previous ones, both in
themselves and in relation to context. For example, micropayments were the big
new thing in 1990s journalism, and micropayments are the big new thing today.
What's changed, about the micropayments, the journalism, or the context?
Presumably a lot, but I rarely see a good historical analysis.

As for a specific suggestion, Indymedia and Wikinews are two other non-profit,
crowd-sourced journalism attempts. Indymedia aims at a far-left/activist
viewpoint, while Wikinews aims at a more neutral one.

