The New Truth in Advertising in 2010

I was surfing recently on one of the tech sites I visit when I saw this ad from Microsoft purporting to show a live stream of people thrilled with their Windows 7 installs:



I thought, "Wow, really?" So I quickly searched the Twitter stream for Windows 7 and Win 7. The results are a lot more like what I would have expected. Some "nice," yes, but balanced with a troubles, dislike and the unintelligible.

Gordon Crovitz on NYTimes' Metering Strategy

I asked Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of Journalism Online and former Wall St. Journal publisher (who helped lead the charge there to find the model to charge for their content online) what he thought of the NY Times' announced move to go to a "metered" model to charge for access to their website. Simply put, users who access the paper a lot would pay after a certain number of views (per day/week/month or other is not yet specified.), as of 2011.

Here are Crovitz' thoughts:

"The metered model is a smart application of the freemium strategy. Publishers can keep free access for their less frequent readers online while seeking a reasonable payment for full access from their most engaged readers, who value the brand and content the most. The metered model is the most popular among the publishers planning to launch using the Journalsim Online e-commerce platform."

Journalism Online, which I wrote about for Poynter's e-Media Tidbits among other places, is developing technology and working with publishers to help them find the optimum mixes online of subscription, advertising, a-la-carte and other pricing and revenue models for their content.

Twitter 'Phenomenal' for Traffic Says Rafat Ali

Rafat, founder, publisher and editor in chief of Paid Content and its Content Next network, talks about how the site is playing with Twitter and real-time news feeds, using the tools as a reporting resource and business tool.