Currently running as a registration service, The Times plan to launch their paid-for site in the next few weeks. So far they are reluctant to release initial registration figures and the demographic audience they are attracting. OJB caught up with Assistant Editor and Head of Online Tom Whitwell at News:Rewired to find out more:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCWt1b14yx8]

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More questions from a student that I’m publishing as part of the FAQ section:

1. If News Corp starts charging for news stories, do you think readers would pay or they would just go to different newspapers?

Both, but mostly the latter. Previous experiments with paywalls saw audiences drop between 60 and 97%. And you also have to figure in that a paywall will likely make content invisible to search engines (either directly or indirectly, because no one will link to them which will drop their ranking). Search engines are responsible for a significant proportion of visits (even the Wall Street Journal receives a quarter of its traffic from Google). Still, some people will always pay – the question is: how many?

2. A newspaper website which introduces paid content is very likely to see a decline in number of visitors. How would this affect advertisers and the amount they agree to pay to that website/newspaper?

Advertisers will pay more per user, firstly. Both because they will know more about that user through registration details (and therefore advertising will be more targeted), and also because they know that that user has paid to see content, making them both more engaged and likely to be more affluent.

Of course, there will be fewer of those users, so the challenge is compensating for the loss of quantity through the increase in quality.

3. In your opinion, how could the concept of ‘charging for content’ affect the quality of journalism?

The interesting thing about the recent announcement by the editor of The Times is that he said they wouldn’t charge per article because that would influence their commitment to expensive journalism such as covering Sri Lanka.

An optimist would hope that charging for content would mean that a news organisation would focus more on unique journalism that doesn’t replicate what is available elsewhere for free. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll see that happen, at least in the near future.

It’s worth pointing out that many web operations churn out content because the advertising rates are so low they need to get as many views as possible.

On the flip side, if your paywall is preventing you from attracting enough readers to fund decent journalism, then you save the same problem.

More generally, putting up a paywall means that your journalism is seen – and criticised – by fewer people, which I would argue does present a quality issue. The future of journalism is collaborative, so if you’re putting up barriers you’re not enabling that opportunity to tap into the enormous knowledge in your former audience.

4. Do you think other newspaper publishers would follow News Corp and start charging for content or there would always be “free” places for news?

If News Corp makes it viable, then yes, others will surely follow. Until then I think almost all will sit back and see what happens with News Corp. But there will always be free places for news for a range of reasons: firstly, publicly funded organisations like the BBC and those with a social remit such as The Guardian; secondly, those funded by voluntary or foundation income such as The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and organisations like Amnesty; and finally, passionate citizens and those who simply like to chat.

5. Do you think that ‘charging for content’ is a vital business model which would last for long time?

I think it’s a business model that can work in some circumstances, if managed intelligently. The FT, for example, seems to be making it work, mainly because that content is financially valuable (I’d argue it’s information they’re charging for rather than content) but also because they’ve not cut it off entirely.

But broadly I think it’s the most difficult model because people never paid for ‘content’; they paid for a package and a service that included content. They bought a newspaper, not ‘the news’.

As for its longer term viability, as the means of production and distribution become more widely available, and advertisers themselves become content producers, it’s going to be increasingly difficult, and we’ll see increasing pressure on government to legislate to shore up publishers’ monopolies because of that, I fear.

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Following today’s landmark judgement on one blogger’s right (or not) to anonymity, I thought it might be useful to post the following tips on maintaining anonymity online.

1. Use an anonymous email account to register your blog. Hushmail is one free service that provides encrypted accounts; RiseUp is aimed at activists; MintEmail gives you a 3 hour temporary email address and FilzMail gives you one that expires after 24 hours. You could also use these to post to your blog via email. Posterous is a great blogging service that allows you to do this.

2. Make sure your IP address isn’t logged when you register or post to the blog. You could use something like Anonymizer or Tor or Psiphon. Other services that mask your IP are listed on this forum.

3. Or you could use an anonymous blogging platform. Invisiblog was one but no longer exists. BlogACause claims to be “anonymous” but I’m trying to find out exactly how UPDATE: here’s how, apparently. In the meantime, this post recommends WordPress and something like Tor.

4. Use a pseudonym that you don’t use anywhere else. If you use a pseudonym, don’t use it on other services as well, as this will make it easier to trace you. If you’re struggling, this Random Name Generator will create one for you.

5. If you’re going to register a domain name do so anonymously with a service like The Online Policy Group.

6. Be careful what information you include. Although police blogger NightJack changed or did not include names in cases he was involved in, the details were specific enough for a journalist to track him down.

7. Don’t win awards. Or book deals. It’s safe to say that a major newspaper would not have been interested in the identities of NightJack or Girl With A One Track Mind if both had remained cult underground heroes. So just pretend you’re sub-literate, OK?

For more information, the following guides go into much more detail:

• How to blog safely by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Anonymous blogging with WordPress and Tor by Ethan Zuckerman – and also by Ethan: A Technical guide to anonymous blogging
• Hints and tips for whistleblowers – covers everything online and offline
• How to communicate securely in repressive environments by iRevolution (thanks Lisa Lynch)
• How to hide emails from government snooping by Jack Schofield

More links and tips welcome. My Delicious bookmarks on anonymity are at http://delicious.com/paulb/anonymity

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(This entry was originally posted by Dave Lee on jBlog)

A few days ago on this blog, Paul Bradshaw wrote what he called one of the most important posts he’s ever made. Here it is.

In it he describes how the era of the awkward, socially backward geek is nearly behind us. They’re not geeks, he says, they’re early adopters. And you’d better listen to them if you want to stay a step ahead of the game.

What Paul didn’t mention in his post, and what I feel is worth pointing out, is that as well as being early adopters, geeks are also early rejectors too.

In other words, listen to the geeks. If they use something for a long time, then it’ll slowly become mainstream. If they ditch it, then you should ditch it too.

This theory stacks up for almost any example I can think of. Except one: RSS.

Really Simple Syndication. Now, you and I know it’s brilliantly simple, but for some reason it has yet to hit the mainstream.

So why hasn’t it taken off? I’ll offer up some reasons for debate:

1. People don’t know what it is. This, as I see it, is the most minor problem — people can learn. I asked my Dad if he’d ever heard of RSS. He said no. More needs to be done by news companies to make sure people like my Dad know what RSS, and why it is of use to him.
2. We’ve got the language all wrong. Feed this, feed that. Subscribe to this, subscribe to that. The word ‘feed’, in everywhere other than the internet, means the reverse of RSS. When you feed something, it requires YOU putting something in. You feed a paper shredder with paper. You feed your dog by giving it biscuits. And then there’s subscribe. We’re on a newspaper website — is it unreasonable when non-tech-savvy users associate the word subscribe with handing over money?
3. RSS readers are too complicated. Using RSS is messy if you don’t know what you’re doing. Sign up to a service (or download a program) and the first thing it’ll ask you to do is add a feed URL. Feed URL? Normal people don’t know what a feed URL is. You’re scaring them off.

Why can’t feeds just be called ‘stories’? Why don’t we ‘follow’ stories instead of subscribe to them?

Why are we relying on explanations like this to educate readers?

Newspapers need to make and market their own RSS readers.

Think about it. Make an RSS reader, and invite people to sign up. Once set up, offer a huge array of simple one-click subscribes, sorry, follows. You could even make this follow list user generated — if you find a lot of people are manually adding feeds, then these can be added to the simple one-click list.

And if you’re wondering how it makes money, then think of it this way: “Hello Mr Website Owner, for £loadsa-wonga we’ll add you to our list of feeds,” you say.
“Wow! Great! Now I have thousands of new readers clicking on my ads!” say they.

What’s more, just think of the hits. Now that your readers don’t need to go to each of their favourite sites to read new stuff, they’ll spend more time on your site. And with all those reading habits you’ll be able to target adverts like never before, right down to knowing if Bob from Newquay keeps making the type bigger. Maybe he wants some new reading glasses?

It solves all the problems I’ve described in this post. First, you’ll have a nice new budget to advertise your ‘Story Follow’ service, thus people will know what it is. Second, because you’ve made the technology you can strip out all the horrible terms like feed and subscribe and replace them with friendlier ones. Words that makes sense. And finally… users will feel at home using a website from a brand they trust.

Everybody wins.

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Blogging recently on Newsquest’s relaunch of its websites, I feel I was a bit harsh on the Lancashire Telegraph…

Since that review the site has cleaned up and, more importantly, sped up. But here’s my frustration: the newspaper is one of the best in the country when it comes to innovation in interactivity, and the new website does far too little to show that off.

So, here’s my attempt to redress that. I’ve added the Lancashire Telegraph to the Interactivity Index – a comparison chart of the features of newspapers around the world (more visualisation options to come). If you select it from one of the drop-down lists below you’ll see it scores an impressive 1200 points thanks to its use of RSS feeds, text updates, blogging, slideshows and impressive video. That score is higher than the Independent’s 1000 points, and The Mirror’s 800, and puts the site level with the also relaunched Hull Daily Mail (which is also an innovator with interactivity).

In the interests of fuelling local rivalry, I’ve also added the Lancashire Evening Post. There must be something in the water around those parts, because they do even better, scoring 1400 points, making it as ‘interactive’ as The Times (yes I know that’s a subjective term and some things are more interactive than others, but it’s as good a guide as any).

Any other nominations for most interactive regional newspaper?

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