Tom Mamela - The online Competition to Save newspapers

When beleaguered middle management from top newspaper companies met at a Chicago airport hotel in late May, they made a decision they required a savior - that is, a tech company to help them work out methods to earn income online . Letters inviting solutions went out to ten companies, and in July the responses discreetly rolled in. Google's offer inadvertently showed up online Sept. Nine, sparking an ocean of media reports about Google's plan to save papers.
But what of the other firms that contributed ideas, starting from established powers in the tech world like IBM and Microsoft to such up-and-comers as YouData and Journalism Online?

'There's definitely a potential for one of these companies to become the most popular and reign over the field, and that is's especially true if their technology and business design envisions some kind of a multisite pass,' announces Rich Gordon, director of digital creativity at the Medill faculty of Journalism.
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Google has an advantage over the other contenders since it already has the technology available. Google's latest proposal entails expanded use of its Checkout product, which currently lets users shop across the Web but sign in in one place. Its paper platform would include a corresponding single sign-on where users could examine content from different paperspapers for one price .

But Google's relationship with newspapers is a bit stressed, generally thanks to the way Google stories now distributes newspaper content - effectively diverting readers away from individual stories sites by permitting them to scan press releases and story briefs without leaving Google. However [*COMMA] on Sept. 16, Google tried to mend fences with newspapers by launching Fast Flip, a current news heart that allows readers to scan thru participating newspapers, but gives those papers a slice of the money from adverts placed round the site.
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Another proposal comes from Journalism Online, a pay-for-news company whose founders include Steven Brill, the previous editor of Content, and L. Gordon Crovitz, a previous publisher of the wall street journal. The company's offer would offer an outlet for stories from many suppliers, but would allow them to choose which parts of their content should go behind a pay wall and how much to charge. Unlike Google Journalism Online's platform remains in progress. Another offer from MyWire's worldwide stories Service, owned by Louis Borders ( the founding father of Borders Books ), would also organize content from participating papers behind a pay wall, but it uses existing technology.

Microsoft, the other big-time company that, like Google, already has the technology available to implement a pay wall, also suggests aggregating information from many news sources in one pay-to-play location. The firm's proposal emphasizes user preferences and hopes to make the content accessible from any device, both on- and off-line. Yahoo is said to be readying an idea also but hasn't yet given any details.
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So who will win? Randy Coats, vice chairman of interactive for Scripps Howard newspapers, will make the choice for his thirteen newspapers. He believes that tech corporations that base their offers on existing tools stand the best chance ; Google is the favorite, he adds, because of its proven track record in monetizing online content. 'This is far too important for us to be trusting vaporware.'

It is tough to tell what payoff would go to the winning technology supplier, asserts Gordon, nor is it even known who would own the content. There is also the problem of whether the assorted pay-for-content ideas would fly with shoppers. Google manager Eric Schmidt lately told British broadcasting executives that charging for online content won't work excepting niche and specialist markets. Consumer surveys have a tendency to support those doubts. A Belden Interactive survey released in mid-September found that computer users who said they'd pay for reports online would shell out a mean of only $4.64 a month, while 47% of the group surveyed said they would not pay anything.