Mobile Computing News

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Several months ago we wrote about Times Online and the Sunday Times going behind a rather pricey pay wall that meant access would be limited only to those who paid for it. This Sunday Times pay wall has since taken effect. The Guardian newspaper is pulling in the opposite direction, though, with its latest innovation seeing the company opening itself to sharing content more.

The Guardian blog plug-in

The Guardian blog plug-in will allow websites to embed the full text of a Guardian new article directly into their post. This is great, considering innovation like this has been seen around press releases and commentary around that. Specialist sites, like this one, will essentially be enabled to do the same with the original Guardian story and be able to comment around that.

But before you mistake this for Guardian-like benevolence, this plug-in comes with a huge catch. Sites that use this plug-in have to embed the website’s advertising, too.

It’s a game of capacity

When it’s boiled down to its essence, this whole pay wall vs. no pay wall argument is an advertising capacity and revenue game. In fact, it boils down to revenue. Insofar as Newscorp sites, in this case the Times and the Sunday Times, cannot sell the advertising capacity they have based on the number of impressions they receive, blocking free access may not have as negative effect as many suspect it will. If the revenue it receives from paying customers, coupled with the depleted advertising capacity being sold out in full, this move could be a masterstroke on the part of Rupert Murdoch.

Photo: Apple

The same applies to the Guardian. If what that site is searching for is more impressions to advertise against – that is, if they have more willing advertisers than they have advertising ‘space’ – this ‘sharing’ plug-in is ingenious.

Mobile devices add to the tip-toe

As if the challenges for the news industry aren’t varied enough, publications are having to face the dual threat-promise new devices bring to their businesses. What the iPad and other tablets mean for this space has been debated at length, and for our money, the Guardian seems more inline with the times.