The great media experiment begins as London’s The Times and Sunday Times erects a paywall that requires online readers to subscribe.

So what are they selling? Simple really, either you buy today’s edition – or you buy a subscription to all the editions this month.

No atomic content sales here! No micro payments of 2p for 1 article – no! Just as we forecast, we have returned to selling newspapers!

Hurray!

The big question now is – can The Times make it work?

Well, time will tell – but let’s take a look at their offer. You have two choices

• £1 for a day pass (ie today’s edition) – sold rather like WiFi access is sold – on a time limited basis.

or

• £1 for 30 days (ie a subscription) – with repeat billing at £2 per week after the first month – or £8.66 per month.

So what does this tell us about strategy?

Clearly, everyone will choose the £1 for 30 days over the £1 for one day! So, the pricing is designed to turn us into subscribers.

And, what are we subscribing to? A £104 per year subscription. Is that a lot or a little? Well, my Economist subscription renewal has just arrived and I’m offered a 47% discount which means I pay £108 per year.

Practically the same then!

What is interesting is how this relates to buying copies at the newstand. Each copy would cost £1 during weekdays and £1.50 for the Saturday paper. The Sunday Times costs £2.

So, add it all up and you ‘could’ spend £442 per year on buying every copy of The Times and The Sunday Times. So, will the offer be shown as 77% off? Well, maybe, but who buys every copy every day? Perhaps a library – but no sane individual?

Hence, there would appear to be a growing practice of charging just over £100 for an annual subscription for a quality news feed.

And it fits well – because even if you took the view that you would only buy the paper 3 times per week plus the a Sunday paper – and not holidays – so 48 weeks of the year – your annual cost would still be £240.

And, of course, this subscription gives you access to the mobile (iphone) edition too – which, if bought through a different iPad subscription is a more expensive £9.99 per month. Now, the iPad edition is not great to navigate – the FT does a far better job – but that is another story.

The point is that the current pricing model adopted by The Times makes internet buying of newspapers a bargain!

Great – so the pricing strategy is clear – and is based on The Economist superbly successful subscription model. Now, will it work?

Want me to get off the fence and answer that? Well, of course, I have to say yes.

Why? Simply, the pricing is very attractive but also based on very sound principles – The Economist probably the best selling subscription product in the world and people are already paying for it – and The Times have taken a leaf out of their book (or newspaper).

Ooohhh the iPad!

On one hand – 2 million boxes shifted worldwide – so far.

On the other hand, slight disappointment.

Hmmm….

Do I, don’t I? Do I get an iPad, or not?

Well, at a basic level, yes, I want one. Just to be a part of the hype and excitement.

But, there is a version two coming very soon – the data plans that go with the iPad are currently rubbish and duplicate my existing plans… and then there are all the competitor products coming in the Autumn too.

Okay, so we are in business – a tablet device will be mine before the end of the year.

But who’s? iPad doesn’t run flash – that’s kind of annoying. Nor, as my daughter tells me, does it allow me to listen to music whilst reading a digital book – that is a shame (unless I hack it, of course).

But worse of all, Wired Magazine launched on the iPad last week and didn’t quite live up to its billing – and its You Tube videos of how it might look and feel on an iPad.

The complaints? Well, it took too long to download, the experience was poor – although the design was brilliant. Check this site for a further discussion of why the tradition high gloss magazine isn’t translating directly onto the iPad.

So, there we have it – the new digital magazine format – designed for tablet devices – is still up for grabs. No one, has, yet delivered the slam dunk digital magazine on this format. But somehow, there has been pretty broad acceptance that the future lies with tablets – for reading and enjoying media.

And there lies the opportunity ….

The Times and Sunday Times are taking their first steps to charging for news.

You can register at http://www.timesplus.co.uk/welcome/index.htm to get a ‘preview’ of what is to come  – and yes, it is all about paying, but it is also about paying for the new generation of digital media.

The point here is that we are about to see a new generation of digital media – perhaps partly inspired by the new devices that can carry it – but far more interactive, graphical and video based, than before.

Interesting development.

End of April sees the launch of Wealth Manager International.

Wealth Manager International is a digital magazine published by MediaModo under contract and is aimed at the expat and offshore professional advisor.

“The offshore sector is one of the fastest growing in the financial advice and services business and a magazine designed for this sector and about the people in this industry is long over due” says owner Kevin Turner.

What media looks like on the iPad

So, what is significant about this?

… you are looking at an issue – a publication – no longer looking at atomised content – or a collective of individual pages.

What is clear is that this is a particular issue from a particular time covering all the issues, the scores, the stories and the trivia that were alive and interesting and relevant at that time.

It is an issue. It has a date. In time, it gives a glimpse of what was important back then, when it was published.

Media then, is attempting to return to its roots with its latest devises – that is publishing newspapers, magazines and books – only this time with multi-media content.

Perhaps we should have labled this post Back to the Future?

Media Modo wins contract publishing deal to create, launch and deliver a global digital title focused on the International Financial Adviser sector.

The FT is not going to ’sell content’ online but they are going to start to sell daily newspapers online. Remember, the daily newspaper is the essence of any newspaper brand.

In an interesting report (also on the FT) the news was headlined as FT selling content for micropayments.

However, the really interesting news is that the FT is not going to sell individual articles (content) – but individual daily newspapers.

The mooted price is £2 – which is a similar price to what people pay at the newsagents.

It does rather seem that we have a hallelujah moment here. Suddenly, online media looks like offline media only distributed digitally as opposed to via newsagents.

Suddenly, you get the feeling here, what’s the big deal to buy a newspaper for £2? Do you have an issue with that? Of course not.

So, by dropping all this nonsense of online media is different, we can just see digital as a different distribution route for the same ideas.

Of course, there may be a few interesting developments here – such as the daily print newspaper containing a voucher which allows the reader to view it online… to deliver an enhanced brand experience  … an automatically download copy to your iPad …. or perhaps not?

It will be interesting to see what the FT does – and then even more interesting to see how the FT adapts its model to reflect consumer response.

But this is the first clear sign that media owners will return to selling packaged and branded goods (in this case a daily newspaper) and stop all the silly nonsense around selling single articles for pennies.

Print media owners figured out years ago that readers didn’t want to stand at the newstand shelling out 2p for each article they found interesting. No, they just wanted to hand over the money, get the package/ paper/ book/ magazine, and take it away.

Not so very different after all?

We Live in Interesting Times! (with apologies to the FT’s We Live in Financial Times strapline)

Apples’ new iPad was launched to much excitement and so many blogs that it seemed to be pretty pointless giving any further response to the new product – yes, we all agreed, it was wonderful.

However, now the dust is settling, people are beginning to ask – ‘I’ve got a PC or Apple Mac, I’ve got a iPhone or smart phone – do I really need an iPad’?

It is a good question – because the answer is, to paraphrase the reply to Captain Kirk; yes Jim, but not as we know it…

Will the iPad be a better portable computer? Clearly not, because it is designed to synch with a PC or notebook – so not a replacement.

Will it be a better smart phone? Again, no, because it doesn’t have a picture taking camera nor any ability to talk.

So, why then?

Well, the reason that we’ll all have iPads is because we will want the media products that it will stimulate – and that haven’t yet been built!

Essentially, Apple have offered the publishing industry a holy grail – and after 20 years of steady decline, this industry is desperate for good news.

The holy grail is that newspapers – the FT, New York Times, Daily Mail etc … will be able to deliver their product as a whole entity to the iPad each morning.

Sorry for the language here – whole entity – but I’m just trying to say ‘the whole newspaper’ – which means selling a product or brand rather than the common internet language of ’selling content’.

The media conversations around ’selling content’ will now die and it will become; selling an iPad subscription to such and such a newspaper or magazine.

Now, here is the crunch, why read the newspaper or magazine on your iPad when it is free online? Simple, because;

a) it will feel like a physical newspaper (or magazine) - you can do the ‘B’s’ that is – take it to the bath, bedroom, beach, bench, bus and, yes, bog. Okay perhaps only the bath is in question – but all other Bs are fully taken care of – this is not so, remember, with you PC (but it might be with your iphone???).

b) it will be delivered to your home ontime and everyday- regardless of the weather, the paper boy or your dog’s desire to chew before delivering. And, we humans, are habitual – that is we like routine and when your newspaper arrives every morning you will read it more regularly than if it does or doesn’t depending on the day or traffic or some other factor

c) thirdly, your newspaper will come alive. You’ll have embedded video reports for news, highlights of the goals, videos explaining health techniques – and you’ll be able to click through to the internet or put favourite items straight into your shopping basket.

Oh yes, the newspapers and magazines will come alive on the iPad – they will be quite different products – and this will allow the publishers to sell them on a subscription basis and advertisers will eat them up – lovely colour and moving image with a direct clickable link for ‘more information’

So, truly, the products and publications that you will want on your iPad haven’t been built yet, but they are coming.

And when they do – you will want (need) an iPad. Perhaps we should start saying; its publishing Jim, but not as we know it…

MediaModo has won a grant from the North West Development Agency (NWDA) to conduct research into an entrepreneurs accrediation award.

“This is award will allow us to create and formalise the process by which entrepreneurs can be recognised for the real life business lessons they have learned and skills they have gained” said Neil Lewis, Media Modo Partner.

He continued, “we expect that banks, business angels, VC funds and fellow entrepeneurs will be able to use the formal accreditation to more effectively select entrepreneurs to lead their business ventures and investments and that the outcome will be a reduction of risk and higher rate of return.”

“This is a very exciting media project that will be delivered through our Rags to Wreckages brand – real life business advice and services to help entrepreneurs succeed” explained Lewis.

The award will be spent at a North West University or research institute.

Do you have a website? Of course you do.

Or perhaps you have a blog? Or have written a book or guide?

Certainly if you are a consultant or part of a business, then that business will have a website, right? And probably a blog? And you might be thinking about a forum or a newsletter?

Or perhaps a whole lot more, audio, video, reports, graphs, moving images and so on?

Either way, you are now publishing, aren’t you?

And, whilst a few websites may remain static digital business cards (and some should simply revert back to this status), the majority of business websites or websites for business people, need updating.

Updating today, and tomorrow, and the week after, and next month? That’s publishing – creating, displaying and distributing new content to the (hopefully growing) band of users.

In fact, how does it look if someone looks at your website and sees the last post or entry is from last year (ie last month, December)? Not good is it?

So, now the tail is wagging the dog. You thought it would be great to have website, you knew you needed to add content to get search engine ranking and so bring in the new enquiries and so forth; only now, the regular blog is getting harder to write. If you send a newsletter it is going out a week late (or two). And you are starting to think, can we keep going?

It is a good question. Or at least, it is good that you are asking the question. Sadly, many websites don’t address this issue – that is, they stagnate and then just sit on the web growing old and damaging your brand.

So, what do you do?

You have a choice, either return your website to a digital business card (such that it doesn’t need updating) or accept that a website is like a magazine and needs to be updated and refreshed on a regular basis.

The reason that so many websites fail, is because they fail to do one of these two things – update and refresh.

We are all publishers now (okay, accept those business that restrict themselves to just a digital business card) and, publishing needs to be done professionally and to a reasonable standard to maintain your brand.

If not, then your website risks joining the other 90% of living dead websites that fill up most of the internet.