Free Online Content? Steve Brill’s “Definition of Stupidity”

VIDEO

by Zeke Turner | 6:20 am, July 20th, 2009

» 4 comments

Stupid. The definition of stupidity. Idiotic. Beyond belief. A Disaster.

These are the words that Steve Brill uses to describe the way media outlets are passing out their wares for free on the web in an interview with The Atlantic’s Bob Cohn at the Aspen Ideas Festival. But lucky for them, all those stupidiotic giveaways will begin to give way to plausible subscription models once Journalism Online — Brill, former WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz and media private equity man Leo Hindery, Jr.’s “engine” — is up and running this fall. The engine will provide ”one simple way to be a content consumer,” and help newspapers and magazines, you know, make money again.

Daily Finance reports that Journalism Online will be announcing its client list in the next two weeks. But, for what it’s worth, not a single potential client has outright turned them away.

Chris Anderson (earnestly?) inserted himself in the comment thread on The Atlantic’s site to remind all of us that he wrote a book recently about this sort of thing:

Great interview, Bob, but what he’s describing–10% paid, 90% free–is precisely the “Freemium” model that my book is about. Not sure why he bangs on about why free is so terrible when his own prescription is 90% free.

Crovitz chimed in before the interview turned into a second round of back and forth between Anderson and somebody else who has an opinion about this sort of thing.

Chris:

Greetings. Absolutely–the approach we at Journalism Online have urged many of our affiliate publishers to consider is indeed the freemium strategy. Thanks for popularizing the term. As my fellow co-founder Steve Brill suggested, we think that many strong brands will be able to convert 10% or so of their monthly unique audience–the most active, engaged 10%–to paying subscribers. The technology platform we’re building will help publishers determine who among their users are likely subscribers and the kinds of access that will justify what level of pricing. Cheers, Gordon Crovitz

Additional coverage of Journalism Online: paidContent, editorsweblog.

Aspen Ideas Festival, Chris Anderson, Daily Finance, editorsweblog, Free, Gordon Crovitz, Journalism Online, Leo Hindery Jr., paidContent, Steve Brill, The Atlantic

Andy LoCascio

Actually Steve Brill needs to take a long hard look at the history of journalism on the internet as well as the numerous documented failures of sites that decided it was time for someone to pay for their content. If you need someone to pay for your content, chances are good your content is not unique and compelling enough to keep users on your site. When your content is just ordinary, it is impossible to find a means of monetizing your site (ad sales, etc.). He probably owns a car with Sirius/XM radio in it…
Vidiot

Remember Contentville.com? Didn’t Steve Brill run that little venture into the ground?