I bet that’s what the broad game plan is! if it doesn’t then again the southward-heading newspaper industry will recoil back to old self and again forcibly show its resentment over search engine in the likes of Google (not Yahoo or Live).

So what’s the idea for saving the industry?

Answer (as of now): News Corp is planning to introduce micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the WSJ‘s website this year, in a milestone in the news industry’s race to find better online business models.

That’s it. Billion dollar industry running on its last drop of fuel on something which has been done before and point to be noted, it didn’t work. Infact, resentment amongst tech bloggers is also getting more vociferous like this one.

Now that makes me think, why in the first place such a business model was considered? Yes, you can argue that on-demand movies worked and now the music industry is working quite well with subscription model where companies like Apple is minting by their iTunes. Now fundamentally, newspaper industry which is in the game of content development and spread is quite different. And that too online, its all about adding value. But when subscription in the wrap of micropayments is labelled, the value addition process decreases i.e. value in commenting, spreading by emailing or sharing to other networks hampers.

But that’s fine since I don’t think this will work either. Only thing is that it may take sometime to realize. Now lets concentrate on what can actually save this industry that my dad grew upon (not that I didn’t but I’m sort of exception since most of my content consumption happens on digital format). Today I read yet another interesting article wherein it was mentioned that The New York Times just released the new version of their New York Times Reader application. This new version is built on Adobe AIR which allows you to run this application on any Windows, Mac or Linux machine. Because it is written on top of the AIR runtime, it will also allow you to install the app on devices that support it. Okay, leave apart the geekiness – for simpleton like me also, its just an application which lets you read NYT content on different platforms.

I think there’s stills scope to add value for newspaper whose audience are slowly and steadily shifting online and consuming the digital print. I remember, Robert Scoble wrote something like this last month and I was wondering that there’s still so much scope. Now using technology to save the industry is a sure shot example of leveraging the existing system for enhancing customer interaction and engagement. But no Sir, till now I haven’t seen something on that scale happening industry wide.

But surely, newspaper industry have to understand the difference between content, channel and audience to save the day.

Related Resources:

• Atomic Unit of Consumption is Publishing Industry’s Greatest Concern
• Is Subscription Model Only Way for Apps to Monetize?