Murdoch foresees paperless future for WSJ, all newspapers

Media mogul and News Corp. chief executive officer Rupert Murdoch said Monday in an interview with FOX Business’s Neil Cavuto The Wall Street Journal could be paperless in 20 years.
Murdoch said he believes almost all news will be delivered either digitally via computer or on portable devices like Amazon's Kindle within 10 years.
While the newspaper industry is currently struggling to change its business model, Murdoch said he believes newspapers will endure. From the story:

“My feeling is that we hopefully hit a bottom here where things will be pretty stable from now on. Not as good as they were a little while back. It’s going to take time to climb out of it. That’s okay,”

View the story here.

What do you think of Murdoch's predictions and a potentially paperless WSJ? Tell us in a comment.

WSJ to introduce micro-payment service

The Financial Times reports that News Corp has plans to take its paid content model one step further.
This year the company will introduce a micro-payment service that allows visitors to pay for individual articles and premium subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal’s website.
From the story:

"The move will position the Journal as the first big newspaper title to adopt a model many are cautiously studying as they seek to reduce their dependence on plunging advertising revenues. It comes as John Kerry, the senator leading congressional hearings on the future of journalism, told the FT it was conceivable that publishers could be given limited exemption from antitrust laws to discuss online models."

New York Times considers charging for content

At its annual conference Thursday, New York Times Company Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said that The New York Times is considering charging for some content again, according to Editor & Publisher.

Sulzberger did not specify any particular business model, but suggested the Times would look again at trying to get paid for its content. For several years, the flagship paper charged international users to access its site, and for a few years charged for access to opinion columns and other contents in its Times Select program.

Sulzberger did not say that the paper would stop running ads online, a practice he characterized as extremely successful.
He offered no time frame for a potential move beyond a statement that more information would be available "at a future date."
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Wired editor on free media

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired, talks about his new book and his notion that media companies can succeed in today's marketplace by charging consumers little or nothing, in the December issue of Media magazine.

He compares online tools and software to the media market and says music and video games will become free. He states that nobody wants to read an entire book online...we have to agree with that.
Anderson also comments on the newspaper and magazine model, saying "Most media has always been free to air. They say that if you understand why they sell newspapers in boxes that don't limit the number of copies you can take, you understand the newspaper business. They aren't selling newspapers. They're selling audiences to advertisers. [Magazines] charge a nominal price that is as close to zero as possible to incentivize the largest number of people to subscribe, but not so close to zero that it makes the product look de-valued. But it has no relation to the underlying costs."
Read the entire article here.