Search Marketing Communications

The Associated Press has begun selling their content via a site called iCopyright.

AP Copy and Paste Excerpt

Understandably, the Associated Press membership is trying to find new ways to monetize content generated from their printing press era cost structures in the digital age.

AP Pricing

I am not sure how the AP arrived at their article pricing structure though.

Websites can use up to four words for free. Using 5 up to 25 words will cost users $12.50.

Websites using Associated Press articles with over 251 words will cost $100.00

AP Referring Web Site

If I were to guess how well the AP’s new article licensing service and its pricing structure will sell , I would guess not very well.

At least not very well to anyone other than those companies or people who were themselves the subject of an Associated Press article.

AP Article Purchase

Why?

Two reasons:

1. General circulation news is perishable and has little value to the internet audience beyond the time in which it was generated.

2. Advertisers accustomed to targeting and measuring buyer activity on the internet will find news related content converts less frequently into buyers and thus makes advertiser justification for supporting internet based news nil.

Tags: AP, Associated Press, iCopyright

This entry was posted on August 2, 2009 at 4:52 pm and is filed under AP, Associated Press, iCopyright. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.