Business Models for Media

In “All the News That’s Fit to Mint” Time Magazine said of The New York Times‘s planned pay-wall: “The real significance of the Times’s plan to charge readers is symbolic. To a journalist, the Times’s admitting vulnerability is a crack in the firmament. It’s like that moment when you see your father catching his breath on the stairs and it dawns on you that someday he will die.” See .

Great quote, but here’s what I found fascinating: The sponsored ads at the bottom of this article, in the venerable Time Magazine online, are those ubiquitous, awful ads for acai berry, hot stock alert, and the mom’s secret to white teeth revealed. Perfect example of the failure of big media to attract advertisers properly online. No wonder big media’s grasping at straws and resorting to a pay-wall.

There is promise that we can target and serve ads precisely to increase effectiveness. With eyeballs certified, and analytics, we have the tools to measure audience and click-thru results. There is a trend for advertisers to do it themselves. But there is audience for online media outlets. What do you think it will take to get advertisers to spend for online media?

Posted by Kathy Sandler on Friday, January 29, 2010 at 9:56 AM