UK regional paper publisher to charge for web access

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Local news publishers in the UK have had a fairly hard time of it recently, hit by falling readership and reduced advertising revenue, but now one of Britain’s largest regional newspaper publishers is to begin charging users to read full stories on six of its titles’ websites.

Johnston Press will charge £5 (about $8) for three months full access to content on the Worksop Guardian, Ripley & Heanor News, Whitby Gazette, Northumberland Gazette, Carrick Gazette and Southern Reporter.

Readers who don’t wish to subscribe will be given access to excerpts and then encouraged to buy the paper copy to read the full stories. [Read more…]

Where Twitter Wants to Be

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From the official Twitter blog:

A small business like a bakery will send out a tweet that the cookies just came out of the oven and a few dozen local followers will rush over and buy warm cookies. The customers like it and the small businesses owners love it. Big companies are using Twitter in interesting ways too.

You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Biz? If Twitter was used that way, it would be hyperlocal and worth ten times more than any guesstimate out there today.

The featured Best Buy mashup Twelpforce thing is pretty far from what you’re dreaming of above, Biz, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

Would you pay for a “blog newspaper”?

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I fully understand the appeal of reading blogs on the morning commute: it often beats what’s printed in newspapers. What I can’t quite get my head around is The Printed Blog recently started by Joshua Karp.

In a world of iPhones, BlackBerrys, Kindles and 3G-enabled notebook PCs, why would I want to pick up and pay to read only moderately recent blog entries over which I have no control and no immediate way of communicating back with them or seeing the ongoing conversation?

“I thought maybe this would translate into a new, venture-funded model for newspapers, but no one believes print news will survive. If I had a penny left, I would bet newspapers will survive in printed form,” Karp said. [Read more…]

The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards

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The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards was concluded Saturday evening with the awarding ceremonies at the Esplanade in Pasay City, Metro Manila. Finalists in the 23 categories were narrowed down from hundreds of nominees, with winners selected by judges from various fields, mostly in the new media industry.

With the aim of recognizing notable Filipino-owned blogs in different niches, the Philippine Blog Awards was launched in 2007 to showcase notable blogs with quality content that engages readers from around the globe. This second year of the event marked the inclusion of network blogs written by Filipinos, blogs written by mainstream media practitioners as well as local corporations that use blogs are effective communication tools.

Two of our folks from Splashpress Media (which also owns the Blog Herald) were also finalists: Sophia Lucero’s Stellify.net was a finalist for Best Blog Design, and this writer for Best Network Blogger.

A list of winners can be found at itot54joni.com. Update: The official list has been published.

Postscript: Read organizer Jayvee Fernandez’ closing remarks, which talks about the three head fakes of blogging.