The old goes new: Charging for online content

Rumors are a-swirling that Rupert Murdoch may discontinue the practice of allowing search engines such as Google to index his websites' content.

This is one of the most influential media moguls ever, so that's a pretty heavy stance, if it's true. This could change the online news industry big time, seeing as Murdoch owns all sorts of newspapers and websites all over the world, especially big names like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, etc.

A long time ago, when the web was still new, businesses tended not to provide free content as well. That was because advertising wasn't readily available, and the only source of revenue for content had to be subscription payments, just like regular newspapers. Or at least, advertising wasn't as widespread, and news companies just didn't provide free information online.
As advertising is dropping off in profitability due to the vast amounts of "real estate" for advertising online, all thanks to a boom in the sheer number of websites that duplicate or take content away from news websites, news companies are increasingly wary of the lower profitability.

If we return to those days of subscription services, would you still pay for online content? It seems a lot of people still do pay, as the Wall Street Journal charges for their content, and yet remains profitable.

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Search ad revenues still climbs, no sign of slowing down

With the latest financial problems at Wall Street and the credit crunch, one would really think the online advertising industry would start slowing down. However, this doesn't seem to be the case so far, but there is yet to come.
Here's a bit of what CNET said about it:

Despite an economic turndown, online advertising--and search in particular--is managing to keep its market intact, according to reports on Tuesday by an industry trade group and Wall Street analyst.

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising revenues rose 15.2 percent, to $11.5 billion during the first six months of the year, compared with the same period last year. And search advertising grabbed a larger piece of the share, accounting for 44 percent of the market--up 3 percentage points.

Search advertising generated nearly $5.1 billion during the first half of the year, up 24 percent from a year ago. Display advertising, meanwhile, also grew at a double-digit pace of 19 percent to $3.8 billion over the course of the first half of the year.

(Credit: Interactive Advertising Bureau)

But what about the third quarter and the market meltdown during the early days of the fourth quarter?

Two players in online advertising say conditions are remaining stable, according to a Tuesday report by JPMorgan analyst Imran Khan.

Search engine marketing (SEM) companies such as Didit and Reprise Media report that third-quarter search budgets were up, mainly due to a shift from more traditional marketing to search advertising.

Well, obviously the search advertising industry isn't going anywhere anytime soon. However, things could still change according to the way the economy is going right now. It's pretty foolish to think that the credit crunch will have no effect on the online advertising industry, because it will affect a lot of new companies, and even bigger companies, because they have to start going into the bunker mode, and one of the first places that they can start cutting is advertising.

True, there seems to be evidence that advertising is still yet climbing, but this could be due to the changes in search advertising itself, now including more industries, so as to gain revenue from a bigger source.

Tags: Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, online ads, search engines, search ads

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