Free Republic

As the media landscape continues to skew to online from print, more news outlets may feel financial pressure to test just how much readers care about professional credentials. Looking into the media furor over swine flu last spring, I interviewed a UCLA epidemiologist, who told me it was best to assume "a posture of humility" in trying to assess how deadly the H1N1 virus would be. "This is a virus we haven't seen before," said Dr. Robert Kim-Farley. "We don't really know what will happen." I've thought often in recent months about those words, which just as easily might be...

Wal-Mart starts selling caskets, urns online By EMILY FREDRIX, AP Retail Writer Wed Oct 28, 4:03 pm ET MILWAUKEE – The world's largest retailer wants to keep its customers even after they die. Wal-Mart has started selling caskets on its Web site at prices that undercut many funeral homes, long the major seller of caskets. The move follows a similar one by discount rival Costco, which also sells caskets on its site. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., quietly put up about 15 caskets and dozens of urns on its Web site last week. Prices range from $999 for models like...

Online spending down as holiday season nears Recession puts brakes on fast-paced growth of e-commerce By Ylan Q. Mui Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 24, 2009 Online retail's runaway growth has hit a wall as consumers have cut back on the discretionary spending that drives the industry's sales. According to research firm comScore, e-commerce sales have been steadily declining this year, with spending not including travel dropping 2 percent in the third quarter. That has set the stage for a tough holiday season, which can account for as much as half of annual sales. "It's not pretty at all...

Time Inc. is gathering U.S. magazine publishers to start a jointly run digital newsstand next year that would deliver their titles to mobile devices like increasingly popular electronic book readers. ---------------- snippity snip ------------------------

The Boston Globe will soon begin charging for its Web site, publisher P. Steven Ainsley told the paper’s union bosses yesterday as the Globe’s parent New York Times [NYT] Co. confirmed in a regulatory filing that the money-losing Hub broadsheet is for sale. News of the Globe’s intention to charge for Boston.com came a day after News Corp. [NWS] Chairman Rupert Murdoch announced his company would start charging for content at all of its news Web sites, including the New York Post, The Times of London and The Sun, a popular British tabloid. News Corp. already charges for some access...

Media giant News Corporation Ltd intends to charge for all its news websites in a bid to lift revenues, as the transition towards online media permanently changes the advertising landscape. News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch told analysts in a conference call after News Corp released its full year results that the traditional newspaper business model has to change. "The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution," Mr Murdoch said. "But it has not made content free. Accordingly we intend to charge for all our news websites," he said. He said News Corp would use the Wall...

MURDOCH: 'WE PLAN TO CHARGE FOR ALL OF OUR NEWS SITES'... 'WE WILL START CHARGING FOR FOXNEWS.COM'... Q. WILL YOU SHUT DOWN ANY OF YOUR NEWSPAPERS?' A. 'ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE... BUT NO PLANS FOR IT' FOXNEWS PROFIT 50% HIGHER THAN LAST YEAR... VERY HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR NEW JAMES CAMERON FILM...

States across the U.S. have been taking a harder line against an old problem -- cigarette smuggling -- as part of the widening search for solutions to their budget problems. States including Florida, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia this year have stepped up law-enforcement efforts with the aim of recouping taxes lost to bootleg cigarette sales. Studies indicate states are losing about $5 billion annually in tax revenue because of illegal tobacco sales, said Phil Awe, who heads the tobacco-diversion division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "We do not want to have our...

"We all know that The New York Times and other papers have been thinking hard about finding ways to charge readers for the news on their web sites, and there’s evidence that the decision-making process is moving along. Bloomberg has reported that a survey of print subscribers included this sentence: The New York Times website, nytimes.com, is considering charging a monthly fee of $5.00 to access its content, including all its articles, blogs and multimedia. It also asked about a $2.50-a-month “discounted fee” for print subscribers....."

The New York Times has sent a survey to its print subscribers asking them how much they would pay for access to its website. From Bloomberg New York Times Co. said in a survey of print subscribers that it’s considering a $5 monthly fee for access to its namesake newspaper’s Web site. Times Co. also asked whether subscribers would be willing to pay a discounted fee of $2.50 a month for access to the site, in the poll confirmed today by Catherine Mathis, a company spokeswoman. Nytimes.com, the most visited among newspapers’ sites, is currently free. Times Co. is contemplating...

The New York Times is testing a price point of $5 a month for access to nytimes.com, with a 50 percent discount for print subscribers. The Times e-mailed a survey to print subscribers Thursday afternoon inviting their reaction to that pricing plan and asking a range of questions about online pricing. NYT survey A portion of the Times' survey on charging for access to its Web site. (Click image for larger version.) New York Times Co. spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed in a telephone interview that the Times had sent the survey, but said no timetable has been set for a...

The visit last month was particularly significant as it was his first trip since the New York Times and IHT websites were merged to a single global product. The tie-up in March served as a precursor to a key decision in August on how best to charge for access to the group's websites, reversing an earlier decision not to, and becoming the first major non-financial newspaper group to take the step. The move comes as the advertising downturn proves particularly challenging for the listed group, which has seen its market value fall 65pc to $707m (£438m) in the past year....

It has been a bad week for gun owners in Tennessee, but the taxpayers lucked out when a proposal to tax online purchases when the retailer advertised through an instate company, website or blogger, stalled. Check to see if your state is considering an eTax.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-read-the-wsj-for-free-online-2009-6Check out the link______________________Other than the Denver Post, which got all the Rocky Mountain News subscribers when that paper shuttered, The Wall Street Journal is the only newspaper in the top 25 to add to its circulation this year.And though this turn of events probably has as much to do with subscription discounting as anything, everyone likes to say the Journal is adding subscribers at least in part because it's erected a paywall online. We've even come out and said the troubled New York Times should follow the Journal's lead.But all solutions have their problems, and it'd be unfair...

Here's a story the newspaper industry's upper echelon apparently kept from its anxious newsrooms: A discreet Thursday meeting in Chicago about their future. "Models to Monetize Content" is the subject of a gathering at a hotel which is actually located in drab and sterile suburban Rosemont, Illinois; slabs of concrete, exhibition halls and mostly chain restaurants, whose prime reason for being is O'Hare International Airport. It's perfect for quickie, in-and-out conclaves. There's no mention on its website but the Newspaper Association of America, the industry trade group, has assembled top executives of the New York Times, Gannett, E. W. Scripps,...

Home furnishing giant Ikea has launched legal proceedings over the rights to the domain name iloveikea.se, a site which currently specializes in selling used Ikea furniture. The site, which is modeled after the popular Swedish buy-and-sell site blocket.se, has been operating for about a month. Ikea has now asked the Internet Infrastructure Foundation (Stiftelsen för internetinfrastruktur), the body responsible for registering domain names ending in ‘.se’, to help resolve the dispute over iloveikea.se, claiming the site infringes on the Ikea brand. “It’s obvious that a visitor to a homepage with the description iloveikea as the impression that it is the...

News Corp plans to introduce micro-payments for individual articles and premium subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal's website this year in a milestone in the news industry's race to find better online business models. "A sophisticated micropayments service" will launch this autumn, Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of the Journal, told the Financial Times. The move will position the Journal as the first big newspaper title to adopt a model many are studying cautiously as they seek to reduce dependence on plunging advertising revenues. It comes as John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator leading congressional hearings on...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – As US newspapers shrivel up and die, an unlikely figure is emerging as their potential savior: News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. The much-villified Australian-born media tycoon is preparing to battle against the practice many hold largely responsible for newspapers' current plight -- the "original sin" of giving away their content for free online. The 78-year-old Murdoch announced this week that the days of free are over. He said he planned to begin charging readers of the websites of News Corp. newspapers "within the next 12 months," testing the scheme "first on some of our stronger ones. "We...

Many states are looking for ways to increase their tax revenue by taxing purchases made online. This extends to third party solicitors located in another state. Our Constitution infers that states are restricted from enacting laws that burden or restrict interstate commerce. Let’s stop this tax now.

If you're planning a major purchase via the Internet, you might want to do it quickly. Congress is expected to introduce a bill this week that would require Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, Cabela's and other online merchants to collect sales tax on all online purchases and return that money to the state in which the purchaser resides. Online Sales Tax?Tony Avelar, AP12 photos Congress will soon introduce a bill requiring sales tax on all online purchases. To read the latest on credit card changes, click through our gallery.(Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker) I was recently shopping for a TV for...