Web Usage Growth Flatlines in U.S., Other Mature Markets

More on the Nielsen/Netratings report on changes in average time spent online at home. The classification of Brazil as a "mature" market and Australia as "emerging", considering that Internet household penetration in Australia is far greater than in Brazil, is somewhat questionable. Nevertheless the trend of flattening growth in more developed markets is evident.

9:56:02 PM    

In Europe and Asia, publishers weigh their Web options

Very educational article on how different countries experiment with various ways of charging for content. The most interesting example is Apple Daily, which  differenciates pricing policies based the reader's location. Simply let price elasticity determine your pricing policies: charge for news where news (in this case in Chinese) are harder to come by (.e. Chinese emigrant workers),  but keep it free in the home country, where competition is stronger.

"Apple Daily, one of the largest-circulation Chinese-language newspapers in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, offers free online access to Web visitors from within those territories, but charges overseas visitors about $40 a year.

"We found a profitable model by building advertising domestically and charging subscriptions for overseas readers," said Mark Simon, group advertising director of Apple Daily Newspapers. "We just don't like giving away content that we worked hard to create." Since the newspaper started charging about three years ago, the number of overseas online subscriptions has reached 30,000. Meanwhile, online advertising revenue has reached $2 million annually, with rates charged by the Web site increasing at 5 percent a month." "

6:59:37 PM