IN the media, especially the print media world, people have described the internet as a ‘linked economy’; meaning that more links signify greater value and should not only be spread freely and widely, but sought after. When you are talking about internet traffic, and page views, this formulation makes some sense.
I have issues with this turn of phrase, but I do think it makes a greater point about the revenue side of online media. Notably, that links are a primary source of revenue for most of the new media players. Google receives most of its money based on clicks and links, aggregators make all of their money based on them. The point is that links by themselves have, a very small, but measurable value.
Recently, Chris Aheam, President of Thomson Reuters Media, came out in full throated support of the linked economy, encouraging people to link to Reuters stories. This stands in contrast to Murdock who is planning to raise a pay wall at all of his sites in the next year, and the AP who along with Attributor have been talking of trying to charge people for excerpting AP stories, even if they are attributed and linked.
Personally, I am much more on the side of Aheam, but because of the diffusion of content as it is today I am sympathetic to the notion that companies need to be able to monetize, in some form, their quoted work, regardless of where the work appears.
‘Fair use’ is concept that is currently influx, but I believe that if a company tried to start charging for any quotation usage it would be ruled illegal under this doctrine. Not to mention it would be prohibitively expensive to implement, and would target the people with the least ability to pay, bloggers.
Instead I would go in the opposite direction. Anyone can link, or quote any story, but they can’t just use the words from the story that have to use the links, the exact same links, from the original story in their excerpt. In the meantime media companies could start to sell the rights to have their advertiser-links be the link for a given brand word every time that word is used in the content copy. But you’re not going to use the link as it was given by the advertiser; you use a short-url. The beauty is that by using this redirect URL you can counts the clicks regardless of where the link is clicked from, and charge as the clicks pileup. The point would to say yes, you are allowed to use our content to better your content under ‘fair use’, however that also means that you must carry our contextualized-link advertisements as well.
As anyone who knows me already knows, I don’t believe subscriptions are viable. Sub revenue doesn’t even cover the print & delivery of a paper; it’s all subsidized by advertising. Currently digital display ads are pathetic. Yet, rather than address the problem of advertising online, most companies are searching for a vein in a stone…. Good luck with that. (Yes, I am shorting News Corp’s Stock through the 4thQ)
