Archive for Tag ‘micropayments‘

Coverville Citizenship and the Future of Paid Media

Given all the raging debate about paid media online – whether users (or consumers, if you prefer) will pay for access to content, whether paywalls and micropayments have a place, and the like – it’s refreshing to see an independent podcaster demonstrating the value of well curated content and the willingness of folks to pay for it.

Coverville's Original Logo

Coverville's Original Logo

Coverville is a podcast hosted by Brian Ibbott and recorded in his home near Denver, which features cover songs and the topic of covers generally. He does a fantastic job, hosting theme shows like originalville (in which he plays the original versions of songs people mostly know by a famous cover) and cover story (in which the whole episode is devoted to covers of and by a specific artist). Check out the Wikipedia entry on Coverville for a sense of how popular the show’s become.


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Return of Pay-to-Read

It’s beginning to look like the summer of 2009 (or Fall of 2009, depending on how slowly these projects move forward) may be the season in which paid content on major news publishers returns to favor.

Returns to favor among publishers, that is. Will readers accept new paywalls, or simply go elsewhere? Will micropayments finally become a cost-effective option users adopt, or just a costly distraction? What about freemium models, in which base content remains free but other rewards are used to entice what amount to donations?

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