Paid-For News on Internet

I fail to understand how the pay-for-news-and-analysis business model works on the Internet. I would of course like to pay for news that is exclusive and analysis that is trenchant, leading to a distinct financial and strategic advantage for me. Such models can also work if scarcity is drummed up.
But this: news about Bing Maps??? I can read this on the Indian edition of the WSJ if and only if I subscribe to it. Wow! I thought! Must be really exclusive!
One search on the Internet and I get to know everything - everything - about Bing Maps. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
So why would someone pay for news?
News, on any media, should be free and easily accessible.
Business dealing with news can make money only through advertisements.
This is true of newspapers, true of news channels on TV and definitely true of news on Internet.

Coming back to WSJ, India.
I visit it regularly.
It has a collection of articles and news that interest me.
And when I encounter some article that is locked only for subscribers, I merely skip it; sure that I will find information on it from the Internet - free.

If you are a subscriber, perhaps you can explain me your point of view.

Alphainventions - an update on paid subscription

Quite some time ago I blogged about Alpha Inventions. It is manna from heaven for bloggers. You get traffic and you get to see many blogs - both highly desirable.

Traffic in 100's is a given. However, if you want an explosion in traffic then you must try out the paid subscription of Alpha Inventions.

I used the AIID (Stands for Alpha Inventions IDentification, I think) subscription for two months.

Here’s what it does to you and your blog.

1) You are down by $10 per month.

2) Your blog witnesses an explosion of traffic. On days, I managed to get 2000+ visits with corresponding increased advertisement clicks (that sort of neutralizes point 1 above)

3) It reduces your effort to increase hits. Submit your blog once along with your AIID# and go do other jobs.

The Alphainventions team is prompt with dispatching your AIID#.

I benefited from the paid subscription. So this is something I would recommend trying out if HUGE traffic is your goal.

Caution: To capture the fickle bloggers' attention is entirely up to your content and attractiveness of your presentation. Most of the views on your blog actually represent a short term exposure of your blog to the numerous viewers who are viewing Alpha Inventions at any given time.

For those who are wondering if I will continue using AIID subscription ... I would have loved to continue but what I wish to promote using AIID subscription currently blocks the reading cycle. So till the Alpha Inventions finds a solution, I am off AIID subscription and back to normal free submission.

And yes, I do miss the 1000’s of visits already.

Big Increase In Page Impressions and Small Increase In Revenue - Blogging Experience

I have promised myself I will be blogging on my blogging experience as I go along. So here is an update ...

As I type, the page impressions stand at 121,886. Number of visitors are increasing and so are the earnings (no pay offs yet though) - though not at the rate I would like.

This is what I have been doing so far.

1. Blogging regularly. It is becoming a habit now. I have noticed that the more you blog the faster new ideas come tumbling. After a while, you own a style that is distinctive. Hopefully, I have a distinct style of my own by now. I have noticed that my hobbies are feeding off each other. I like to read and I like to blog. My reading gives me ideas for my blogs and my blogging success (?) gives me the push to read further.

2. Spreading my net wider. Basically increasing my catchment area. The idea is to get trickles from a wider area. Towards that I have started Squidoo Lens, which I kind of enjoy. I also am consistently leaving comments on other blogs of interest. This needs to go. I am not very satisfied with the Blog Directories. Not many visitors from these. However, the number of visitors are growing from the IndiBlogger forum, where I love to contribute.

3. I recently started building followers. Right now I have only three. This is on a reciprocal basis, which is a nice arrangement - I get to read some interesting blogs. I think this will give my blog more visibility. The subscription drive through mails continues. My subscribers are my captive audience, sort of.

4. I am paying more attention to catchy titles and attractive pictures. Internet surfers have notoriously short attention plan. Need to grab their attention at first glance. Not sure how successful I am. Will know shortly.

5. I am still reliant a great deal on Alpha Inventions to get me visitors, which it does admirably. There is another similar application on the Internet. It is called Condron. The flow of traffic is much less from here.

I have now decided to do measure the rate of increase of page impressions, rather than just page impressions. So my next update, perhaps next month, will contain better statistics.

The aspect that I am still not very satisfied with is the quality of advertisement. I have a feeling I know why this is so. The topics I write on are varied. This must be throwing the adsense algorithm off. I do not want to compromise on my reading pleasure for advertisements though. But if the visitors do not find relevant advertisements to explore then the success criteria I have set for myself is not met. So it is kind of catch-22.

Adsense offers a few tools to manage adsense advertisements. Need to explore this too.

Picture Courtesy: Ilker