I’ve been very interested in the conversations that have been doing the rounds regarding the future of news publishers and how they are going to survive going forward. Should they charge for their content like Rupert Murdoch is convinced is the way forward (his “The Times” newspaper website put up the pay wall that started this conversation), or should they give away their content for free and try to make money off the advertising?

Personally, I’m not convinced about either of these models. In an era in which people are used to free access to information on the internet, I just don’t see a place for a pay wall. Alternatively, the publishers cannot survive on just advertising in its current format. This is why this morning I was very interested in seeing how the “Financial Mail” (South Africa) website is operating.

To start with, you get access to 3 free articles per month, this is assuming you don’t delete your cookies I would imagine. Even though I realised this is how it was keeping me from viewing more than my allocated 3, I did not actually go and delete the cookie! If you want to view more than your allocated 3, then you have to register with the website.

FM.co.za login screen

Now, there is a bit of a flaw in their design of this process, as only today did I realise that this is a free registration and not a payment based one, which I had thought it was all along (I have been viewing this website for a while), but that is not the point of this post. When I think about the process, I was happy to give them a bit of information about myself to get the content I was after:

A content page from FM.co.za

My point is that they are simply asking for a bit more information about the people who are viewing their content, which I assume is going to be used to amplify their advertising offering, not only by sending newsletters (I opted out of those), but also by offering the allure of data about their audience to advertisers, since now they know what I do now, and what industry I am in. This will, I assume, allow for more decently targeted advertising which is good for us the consumer, the advertiser, and ultimately the website, which will possibly lead to a better income stream for FM.co.za

I’m not saying this model will work, I just think it’s an interesting twist on the operating model, and will be interested to see how it turns out.