tollie.org/blog thoughts and reflections of Tollie Williams

DecaturDaily.com Dies in 2008

Subscription model online? That's an indication of a dying business model at Decaturdaily.com

UPDATED: please see below for responses to others

Now, other newspapers in the region will recognize a greater demand for proper online reporting in the Decatur area and likewise expand their coverage to serve the former DecaturDaily.com readers.

Rather than paying into a dying website, readers will move to The Times Daily, http://www.timesdaily.com, The Huntsville Times, http://www.al.com/huntsville, and even The Hartselle Inquirer, http://www.hartselleenquirer.com - all of which remain free to read online. Local blogs, such as those listed at http://www.al.com/blogs, would be wise to capitalize on the new demand for local, online, reporting.

Meanwhile, others will likely share logins with their friends and family, ensuring that Decaturdaily.com see minimal revenue from subscribers, while seeing an enormous loss in revenue from advertisers who realize that their ads are being seen only by a record low number of visitors, all of whom have a right to expect an ad-less service, having paid already. Advertisers will likely complete their pull out when numbers show that most subscribers will be those already with a paper service.

Unfortunately, my blog, www.tollie.org/blog will likely not be a substitute for local news reporting - instead there visitors will find commentary like this, as well as links I've found useful, interspersed with my thoughts and reflections on life, technology, science, education, and other topics of my interest.

3 years later, the picture becomes very bleak for The Decatur Daily when Decaturdaily.com no longer commands any visitors and paper distribution profits fall below break-even, thanks to the high cost of printing and distribution combined with a lack of demand for news printed on dead-trees. Newspapers that had already recognized the shift to online news models will continue to thrive.

Of course, Decaturdaily.com could always become cognizant of their market, reverse course, and change their business model to one that drives traffic to their website for added value, where advertising revenue becomes highly profitable at reasonable traffic levels thanks to the low overhead of essentially costless distribution. However, will it be too late?

Update: Recent Zogby polls back this analysis.

Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information. Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers.

Additional Updates:

At this moment, MyDecaturDaily.com seems to be having difficulty posting my comments on other related posts. I offer a particular lengthy one here, in the event that it is discovered through my links.

mimisgirl writes:

"If you read decaturdaily.com, it must have value!" If you've been a regular decaturdaily.com reader, it must be valuable to you. How many things in life that have value come freely? $7 a month is not much to pay to access an incredible amount of information on demand. When compared to cable, telephone/cell phone, etc. it's quite a bargain!

My response:

Actually, on the contrary, most items of value on the internet are offered for free to the visitor. This is the emerging "free culture" and should not be confused with a non-profit culture.

Have you heard of Google? Last year they made $4million net. However, have you ever paid to perform a Google search? Or for your free google email? Or for using any of their growing plethora of their services? No, probably not.

Value does not justify a cost.

Competition and the market dictate cost, and since DecaturDaily.com is the only local news site currently charging for its services, (I believe) it will die in 2008, as I talked about here, and on my blog: http://urlvi.be/e7dwk

It will certainly see a drastic reduction in visitors, leading to less advertisers, and virtually no one will pay the $7/month "online only" cost. Almost all visitors will be those with existing dead-tree subscriptions and those will be the few, loyal, Decatur Daily readers.

Others will go to the competition - local television news sites (they all serve the Decatur area), competing regional papers, and national papers for wire stories, etc.

Personally, I see sports blogs in the Decatur area taking off as digital cameras are now cheap and many people love to share about their local sports team for free. Anyone can set up a blog at www.wordpress.com, for instance, and quickly blog about and upload photos of their local high school's ball games.

Even the infamous New York Times, which commands a huge value in their news and features archives, recently decided to stop charging for their access realizing the proper business model is one that offers them for free. (Current news articles have always been free.)

Unfortunately, charging for access to an online news site is a sign of a management that is probably trying to make up the increasing costs of their dead-tree distribution without raising regular subscription rates, but (in my opinion) is doing so without regard for the online news market and modern "free culture" in general.