Hasiera »   Erreportajeak »   Interneten ere ordaindu egin behar

You must also pay online

• Zabaldu:
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Emaila

On the Internet we have become used to being almost all free, at least information, but more and more time ago we talk about paying for content. The truth is that the topic has been in the debate since the creation of the Internet. Some, like the Wall Street Journal, have triumphed but are a minority. The New York Times, in the United States, made its leap a year ago and, despite recognizing that they have been less successful than expected, it seems that the paid content market has experienced remarkable growth in the United States.

According to a report published by the U.S. association Online Publishers (OPA), more and more Internet users have become accustomed to paying for their content. The authors of the report have analyzed the attitude of common and professional users to this type of content and the results are not audible. According to the data, in the first quarter of 2002, Americans spent 300 million dollars on content purchases, 155% more than in the same period of 2001. In 2001, 675 million dollars were spent, 92% more than in 2000.

The spending has been accompanied by an increase in the number of users willing to pay and it seems that little by little people are accepting this system. According to the OPA, in the first three months of 2002 there were 12.4 million people, 9.2% of Internet users and only 5.3% in the same period of 2001. The population of internet users that has acquired content has almost doubled.

Of these, 85% have accessed by subscription, mostly annually. In view of this and the high rates of renewal, the OPA concludes that users consider the system as sustainable. According to them, although for many publishers it is still taboo, the spaces that can only be seen paid are used more and more and these spaces generate important benefits.

However, concentration is the main feature of these services. About 57% of the money is spent on content related to business and leisure and on own ads. The 31% of the expenses of 2001 correspond to business, 16.6% to leisure and 10.6% to contact ads. In the research related content, 8.6% of the money and 2.6% of the general information were spent. Sports contents also occupy the last positions, since they only represent 1.5% of the expenditure.

The report shows the same phenomenon on web pages. In the United States they have detected 1,700 websites that offer paid content, but 85% of the expenses are made in 50 of them. If you take the first 100 of the list, the expenses amount to 97%. RealNetworks, wsj.com, Ticketmaster- ?Search's, Match.com, Yahoo! And Consumer Reports.org are the top five. Yahoo!, for example, has started offering a lot of content to pay in order to get rid of ads that until a year ago have accounted for almost 100% of revenue. And they seem to be making money.

OPA was created in June 2001 and is made up of large American companies publishing content on the internet. The goal of the organization is clear: They want to promote the Internet as a good business opportunity to put ads and sell content. For this purpose, they plan to publish annually research such as those summarized here.

Value added paid content

In this sense, some data published by the consulting firm Outsell can also be interesting. According to a survey conducted by Outsell among employees seeking online information, 47% believe that the content they pay is of better quality and 52% use these services to make high-risk decisions. On the other hand, in daily decisions, only 19% resort to paid information. When asked about credibility, most said that the information obtained free of charge seemed more reliable to him.

However, 80% of employees turn to free websites in search of information and almost two-thirds of them believe that any information can be found on the Internet at no cost.