It’s all over the press this week: The Wall Street Journal will start asking for money to read its stories on BlackBerrys, iPhones and other mobile devices. It is working against a trend that shows that media companies are massively embracing mobile devices, but few dare to ask money for their news applications.
Smart phones continue to shine as one of the brightest spots of the technology industry, with shipments growing despite the global recession (http://www.ifra.net/blog/smart-phones-another-splendid-quarter). And news content providers increasingly need to have a strategy for delivering content to the iPhone and similar mobile devices (http://www.ifra.net/blog/news-is-the-fastest-growing-category-in-iphone-applications).
Rupert Murdoch has a strategy for the Wall Street Journal. It is not a revolution, but his usual pragmatism that says that if readers pay for the financial paper on the Web, why shouldn’t they on a mobile device?
The mobile fees will be imposed in the next month or two, Murdoch said Tuesday during an investor conference in New York. Subscribers to the Journal's print edition will be charged US $1 a week if they want the mobile reading application, Murdoch said. The $2-per-week fee will apply to mobile readers used by people who don't already subscribe to the newspaper. (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/wall-street-journal-to-charge-mobile-readers-2-a-week-1788100.html).
