Pay with your publicity

The rise of social media could make pay walls for news sites unnecessary, according to Felix Salmon, who argues that advertisers will pay more if they can target their ads to consumers with Twitter or Facebook accounts than consumers who merely subscribe to the site.

From his post:

The fact is that if I sign in to a free site using my Twitter login, I’m actually more valuable to advertisers than if I paid to enter that site. That’s because the list of people I follow on Twitter says a huge amount about me, and a smart media-buying organization can target ads at me which are much more narrowly focused than if all they knew about me was that I was paying to read the Times.

He goes on to say news sites would be smarter to let readers register through their existing social-media accounts, rather than use their own registration systems:

At that point, they’re not “useless tourists” any more: they’re highly valuable and targetable news consumers. And the question of whether or not they’re paying for their news becomes much less important to advertisers. And, therefore, to publishers as well.

The success of such a system depends on whether news sites draw a large enough crowd that advertisers actually do find the information useful. The New York Times probably does, but are there enough Twitter users in Pasadena to make this registration system profitable to the Pasadena Star-News?

(Found via Recovering Journalist)