Tag Archives: newspapers

Die Press: “Kachingle”: Ein Sparschwein teilt aus

Die Presse is one of the major daily newspapers in Austria and this article covers the recent German launch of our service. Two of our early adopters, Bill Mitchell (Poynter Entrepreneurs) and David Röthler(http://politik.netzkompetenz.at/), are quoted. Mitchell explains that neither paywalls nor advertising will provide sufficient revenue for major media companies but crowdfunding (a la Kachingle) just might. Röthler says he likes Kachingle’s simplicity, transparency and social recognition.

Crowd Founding mittels Kleinstbeträgen gilt in den USA als Erfolgsmodell für Onlinemedien. Zum Beispiel via “Kachingle”, das eben auf Deutsch gestartet ist

Bill Mitchell, Leiter u. a. der internationalen Programme, meint: „Simple Bezahlschranken (Paywalls) im Internet werden nicht funktionieren.“ Mehrere große Medien, darunter die „New York Times“ wollen demnächst Geld für ihre Online-Artikel verlangen. Doch mit dem einfachen Verlagern des Zeitungsgeschäfts in die digitale Welt – z.B. klassische Inserate, die zu Onlinebannern werden – sei es nicht getan, so Mitchell. Stattdessen rät er: Werbeagenturen sollten sich in Sachen Vertrieb ihrer Botschaften etwas ganz Neues einfallen lassen. Medien sollten Partnerschaften – „frenemies“, halb Freund, halb Konkurrent – schließen.

Am Poynter-Institut hält man das Kachingle-Modell für erfolgversprechend. „Weil es so transparent ist“, sagt auch Mitchell. Und dabei auch auf sich selbst nicht vergisst: 20Prozent der „Spende“ des Users an seine Kachingle-Lieblingsseiten, also rund 80Euro-Cent, behält die Plattform ein. Für Kosten und „Profit“. Nötig für die, die keinen Stifter wie Poynter im Rücken haben.

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Ulrike Lange: “Content producers need new value chains” | “Inhalteproduzenten brauchen neue Wertschöpfungsketten”

Ulrike Lange of MedialDigital gave a well thought out keynote Thursday at the Cologne content web forum, discussing in depth the crossroads she sees for building value (e.g., revenue) around original content. In it she covers Kachingle (Lange’s site sports the Kachingle Medallion), the shortsightedness of many in the traditional media who think paywalls will save their jobs and the reasons why some readers/audience members will financially support sites,  before concluding that all these organizations need to explore new ideas and multiple paths to make their way through the current transition successfully.

Following are several excerpts from Ulrike’s keynote. You can also read the automated Google translation.

Wir befinden uns mitten in einer Medienrevolution. Ähnlich wie in Frankreich ab 1789 wird Blut fließen und es werden Köpfe rollen. Es gibt keine störungsfreie Übergangsphase, wo das alte Analoge allmählich vom neuen Digitalen abgelöst wird. Die Revolution hält sich nicht aufhalten, nicht verlangsamen und sie verläuft disruptiv.

Die Verlage müssen sich allerdings etwas einfallen lassen. Sie müssen einerseits mit ihren Inhalten ins Netz, weil ihre Nutzer dort immer stärker zu finden sind. Sie müssen andererseits neue Wege finden, ihre Inhalte im Netz zu monetarisieren. Vor allem, weil an Werbeplätzen im Internet kein Mangel herrscht, was bekanntlich die Preise extrem drückt.

Meine Kernthesen:

  • Das Paywall-Paradoxon
  • Die Qualität von “Qualitätsinhalten” liegt im Auge des Betrachters.
  • Es wird in Teilen eine Entbündelung bisheriger Inhaltspakete geben.
  • Inhalte im Internet werden sich künftig aus vielen verschiedenen Quellen und Geschäftsmodellen finanzieren müssen.
  • Medienhäuser müssen auch Kuratoren externer Inhalte werden.

Coins feeding the machine

Wofür spenden Nutzer? Was schätzen Nutzen so sehr, dass einige freiwillig dafür bezahlen?

  • Kontext, Analyse, Einordnung. Die Nachricht hinter der Nachricht. Kritisches Hinterfragen. Pointieren.
  • Das Medium meines Vertrauens als Bezugspunkt im Internet, an den ich mich wenden kann als mündiger Bürger, um gut informatiert zu sein und um Einfluss zu nehmen auf gesellschaftliche Belange.
  • Einzigartigkeit, nicht Inhalte, die es auch überall woanders gibt

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West Texas Weekly: “Non-Smoking Website Looking for Responsible Partner: the Kachingle Experiment”

West Texas Weekly continues to show the Kachingle love with Non-Smoking Website Looking for Responsible Partner: the Kachingle Experiment.

I am a proud member of Kachingle (beta)– a micropayment system that takes a $5 monthly payment from member website users and distributes it to member websites.

One of the problems in American media is that it too often appeals to people who care only about pleasure and stimulation. It often ignores the quiet Americans– the people who volunteer at libraries, mentor in our schools and contribute to their local NPR affiliate.

To me, Kachingle (this brand spanking new micropayment system) is a powerful tool be that can enable you to become that responsible, compassionate, community-minded Internet user.

So, if you give to public radio, go to public meetings and care about the long term success of quality websites in America, do what I did and perform the Kachingle experiment.

I joined Kachingle. I now pay $5 a month from PayPal. I then went to EVERY SINGLE WEBSITE THAT IS A KACHINGLE MEMBER AND KACHINGLED THEM. It demonstrates to the member sites that they have support and increases the click rate for the Kachingle home page.

More importantly, it demonstrates to the naysayers, cynics and advertising faddists “Hey, people do care about the long term health of the Internet and American media.” IF WE CAN GET 100 KACHINGLERS ON THE BIGGEST SITE, THEN IT WILL REACH CRITICAL MASS AS CONTENT PROVIDERS BECOME CURIOUS ABOUT IT.

If you meet one request of mine, please: JOIN KACHINGLE AND SPEND 15 MINUTES A DAY VISITING MEMBER SITES.

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John Tedesco: “I am officially a Kachingler”

John TedescoJohn Tedesco, an investigative reporter for the San Antonio Express-News (or as he puts it on his site, a guy who works for that ink-covered relic called a “newspaper,”), writes in “I am officially a Kachingler”, that he likes “the idea of making it easy for people to pay for online content they appreciate.”

I first learned about Kachingle last year from Steve Outing. I thought Kachingle was a cool idea, waited for it to launch, and then promptly forgot about it. Then I read this post by the Center for Public Integrity today saying it joined Kachingle.

Turns out, Kachingle has launched in beta, and at long last I got to sign up with a convenient service to pay my favorite blogs and news organizations.

I appreciate Kachingle for its ease of use. Once you click on that Kachingle badge, paying your favorite blog a little pocket change is automatic and easy. That’s a big deal at a time when news organizations doing expensive watchdog journalism are looking for new revenue streams on the Internet.

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The biggest challenge of the “news people”

In pre-Internet days, people used to buy newspapers either as their principal source of information or to complement TV sources with analysis and some regional/local news. Given the choice, one would buy the newspaper that best matched one’s political and cultural sensibility. Life was simple!

With the Internet, news have become available for free to the reader. This was not really a new situation, as free newspapers in print – living off of advertisement revenues and classified ads- had existed for some time. This is the business model that the world of electronic media initially embraced. It worked for some time; then the classified ads became available for free. And now ad revenues are not enough any more to cover the costs. Why? Because of the economic crisis? It certainly accelerated the process, but it is unlikely to be the real cause for this reduction in advertisers’ interest.

Initially we – the readers – have replicated on the Internet what we were doing with newspapers: we were visiting our favorite newspaper’s web site and read it. And the internet grew bigger and bigger thanks to low-cost user-friendly technologies, making our choice of free sources wider and wider. Attracted by this diversity, we changed our way to look for news, analysis, opinions and content in general.

We changed our browsing habits and now, every day, we visit 2, 3, 5 or more web sites to get informed and form our own opinions on what is important to us. This is the real change that “news people” have to accept to guide them to reinvent the way to attract us and get our attention span, hopefully, a few seconds every day!

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