News Startup

Robert G. Picard’s post on “why journalists deserve low pay” should be the basis for every news organization’s new mission statement.

And it’s about time we started coming up with a few of the new variety.

Picard rightly shifts the focus from us (the journalists and publishers) to them (the people). After all, who cares about what journalists or publishers want?

As much as we wish it to happen, we will never be able to force people to pay very much for our product/service at its most basic level.

Would you pay $150/night to stay at a Motel 6 in Dayton, Ohio? (No offense Motel 6 or Dayton).

That doesn’t mean the masses are not willing to pay at all, Picard argues. We just haven’t offered any compelling reasons for them to upgrade their account (i.e. Jacuzzi! Sweet!).

I’m happy to pay (I’ll let that phrase sink in for a second…) to use premium versions of Flickr, Vimeo and Wufoo. These sites offer additional value (more tools, more flexibility, more storage space, etc.) over their free version and what their competitors offer. They have met my crack-open-the-wallet threshold.

This method has at least three benefits:

• Folks can establish a relationship with us and get a feel for our product or service for free. We can advertise to a larger user-base and/or gather product feedback (e.g. What would you pay for?).
• Folks get a better product/service as we seek to retain and attract customers. We can charge more depending on the awesomeness of our product/service.
• Folks are happy and we’re happy to be able to buy groceries and beer again.

It’s also not about what we think might be valuable to our users. Rather, what do they actually care about? How can we fulfill their needs and desires? How can we add value?

How many newspapers have a public feature/product request forum on their Web site? That might be a good place to start. What do you think?