By Chris Lee

The prolific growth in recent years of blogs, feeds and social networks, not to mention smartphones, has posed great challenges for content providers. A new report warns that a major cultural shift has occurred, shifting the control of content creation and dissemination from the provider to the consumer.

The 2011 Future of Online Content Report from digital consultancy Webcredible looks at previous and existing attempts at content monetisation, including paywalls, micropayments and ad revenue. It suggests that micropayments are only likely to work for entertainment content and most other content types need to be looking to use a combination of well-planned payment models and targeted ad revenue, rather than just a blanket “pay for everything or nothing” approach. NMK took a look at the findings.

Changing nature of content and consumption

Webcredible believes there is a general trend away from the passive consumption of content and towards an active information-seeking behaviour. In particular, the report argues, many people are no longer content merely to receive news, written and packaged up for them by professional journalists. However, RSS feeds – designed specifically to simplify the consumption and bookmarking of online content – have not yet reached the mainstream, according to the report, which argues that the user interface of RSS needs to change to encourage more adoption. The role of RSS is also hampered by people’s changing interests, which the report argues Facebook and Twitter satisfy already.

“Many consumers simply wait for mainstream and niche news to reach them through shared links – recommendations from people they trust and respect,” the report states.

“The proliferation of new content is one of the key driving factors for change on the Internet,” said Trenton Moss, director at Webcredible. “What’s clear is that content consumers have more say in this now than they’ve ever had before, and content providers and technology designers must ensure that they deliver the content people most want in the way they want it.”

Print not dead...yet

Newspaper circulation dipped slightly worldwide by 0.8 per cent between August 2009 and August 2010, according to the annual World Press Trends update. This includes drops of 3.4 per cent in North America and 5.6 per cent in Europe. Developing countries saw a rise in newspaper sales, probably due to low Internet penetration, the report said.

Despite some publishers reporting advertising revenue increases and proven effectiveness of hard copy print advertising, mobile devices will threaten the viability of newspapers in the future as they become more sophisticated and accessible.

“Print may yet survive as a compelling physical alert to attract and funnel consumers towards a more comprehensive news experience online,” the report said. “Context-aware devices will be able to make this transition more seamless. In this situation it actually makes more sense for the print to be free because of its role as a ‘flyer’ for the full content and because free print is more likely to be efficiently ‘shared’ between more people. However, this purpose for print only makes sense in urban environments where distribution is easy and the critical mass of people justifies the cost.”

Show me the money

The report concludes that it is now more important than ever that content is designed with the user in mind.  Users need flexible offerings because they operate in different contexts, they have multiple goals and motivations, and different preferences, so content providers must consider the immediate environment, culture, social context and the context of the Web itself.  There is no killer device or delivery method that can satisfy all of these requirements, so content providers need to take a broader approach, and the jury’s still out on the best way to make money in the new media era, according to Moss.

“Major newspapers like The Times have put up paywalls on all content and it remains to be seen how successful this approach will be,” he concluded. “I would suggest that high quality news content will need to use a combination of targeted ad revenue and the development of payment models that are compatible with the inclusive, interactive nature of the web to stay ahead.”