Newsday Creates ‘Pioneering Web Model’

– New Pay-For-Content Site Is Modeled After Donner Party Pioneers –

Beginning this week, Newsday, the Long Island newspaper New York city commuters choose as a last resort for something to read on the way to work in the event their train station newsstand doesn’t have the NYTimes, the NYPost or a three-month-old copy of Tiger Beat, announced it is moving to a pay-for-content web model.

A spokesman for the paper described the new model, which will attempt to charge five dollars a week ($260/year?!) to customers who aren’t subscribed to the Optimum Online cable system or the newspaper, as a “pioneering Web model.”

The “pioneering” web model is modeled after another famous pioneering venture, the Donner Party, which ended in catastrophe and human cannibalism as the group of early settlers starved to death due to poor planning and an over-ambitious agenda.

Contrary to most prior evidence and common sense, Newsday is excited about what they are calling a “hyper-local” approach to news.

It’s why your local Pennysaver paper is such a media force.

Who is going to pay $260/year for hyper-local news about Long Island?

What the hell is “hyper-local” news anyway? I really don’t care about a story that the trains ran late again yesterday or that a cultural group has formed to help preserve one of the world’s top three most annoying accents.

–

Hyper-local. Hyper-boring.

–

Image: Zuma Press

–

Post from: EveryJoe

Newsday Creates ‘Pioneering Web Model’