Related, this[0] Monday Note is interesting as well:
Last November, in a rather blunt way, I expressed my reservations regarding Blendle’s model (see The New York Times and Springer Are Wrong About Blendle[1]). My concerns ranged from the abundance of free content available on the web (especially in English), to the damage inflicted on the “cross-subsidy model” in which baseball coverage pays for the Kabul bureau, to the risk associated with the “unbundling” of news (and its impact of publishers’ ARPU).
To their credit, Blendle’s co-founders Alexander Klöpping and Marten Blankesteijn seized on my questioning and engaged me in an ongoing discussion focusing on business models that could ensure the survival of quality journalism. This could be a crucial factor in Blendle’s fate: this company has been created by journalists who fervently defend quality journalism and believe that great editorial must be paid for.
In spite of my initial reluctance, the more I explored its model, the more I came to believe it should be tested and carefully analyzed, essentially because it is much more sophisticated and carries more potential that a first look might lead one to believe.
Last November, in a rather blunt way, I expressed my reservations regarding Blendle’s model (see The New York Times and Springer Are Wrong About Blendle[1]). My concerns ranged from the abundance of free content available on the web (especially in English), to the damage inflicted on the “cross-subsidy model” in which baseball coverage pays for the Kabul bureau, to the risk associated with the “unbundling” of news (and its impact of publishers’ ARPU).
To their credit, Blendle’s co-founders Alexander Klöpping and Marten Blankesteijn seized on my questioning and engaged me in an ongoing discussion focusing on business models that could ensure the survival of quality journalism. This could be a crucial factor in Blendle’s fate: this company has been created by journalists who fervently defend quality journalism and believe that great editorial must be paid for. In spite of my initial reluctance, the more I explored its model, the more I came to believe it should be tested and carefully analyzed, essentially because it is much more sophisticated and carries more potential that a first look might lead one to believe.
[0]: http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/10/05/blendle-is-up-to-someth...
[1]: http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/11/02/the-new-york-times-and-...