Comments on: The battle over content heating up

By: Ænima

Ænima — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:27:30 +0000

test

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:05:28 +0000

The changes will keep on coming. When newspapers drop the beat guy, the club loses a major PR advantage as many beat guys are in the club’s pockets. Many papers are just generic info. allready. I just hope the Times sticks so good writing doesn’t die.

By: T15D23

T15D23 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:04:06 +0000

You can’t give it away for free online and have people pay for it in print. This is an old model of gaining market share ala the late 90’s. The industry needs to look at what WSJ.com is doing and mimic it, regarding full blown articles. As it stands, there is not a single newspaper you can’t read for free online.

Maybe look at the MLB, you get the scores for free, but you can’t watch it for free.

Regardless, worry about tiny sites that have some google ads on them, there is no money being made there.

And can you please kill the ad pop up when hitting the comment link?

By: sewinggirl

sewinggirl — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:07:37 +0000

Pete, v. interesting post, ideas I’ve struggled with- I used to write (freelance) tiny pieces on the Yanks for a free NY weekly paper- the word count/limit was literally 350 words per piece – in which I’d offer my “humorous” take (for what that’s worth) on whatever was up in Yanks news that week. Obv’ly the events & details I commented on/retold were gleaned from other NY (occasionally ESPN/SI) beat writers’ accounts, esp details about behind-the-scenes clubhouse stuff (which of c. are the most interesting). I always wondered how kosher this was, even though my editors at the paper never had a problem with it – due to the word count in print (& before the Internet was such a given), there was no way to give citations/hyperlinks to the sources of these details. I esp wondered about the legitimacy of using actual quotes from players, managers, etc. that I’d only read in other publications’ articles (as of c. I wasn’t in the clubhouse getting them myself). Nowadays, I could continue doing this kind of writing in a blog, with appropriate hyperlinks, but it still seems like a bit of a gray territory. I worry (as you suggest) that proper, paid beat writers will be gradually eliminated by local papers, esp the smaller ones.

By: GMAN

GMAN — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:34:58 +0000

Pete Abe is the best baseball reporter out there.

This does not apply to him…

but the answer to assuring baseball coverage at the local level is clear…
Provide more news that people want to read about…

More negative stories about A-Rod’s personal life.

More stories about the Yankees spending too much money.

More stories about what a clean organization the Boston Red Sox are.

More Stories about George Mitchell and his ability to provide an unbiased but very expensive report about steroids and how the Yankee star players are users but RedSox are Clark Kent Klean!

More Stories on why the commission of Steroid-ball always operates in the best interest of the game.

By: Lee23

Lee23 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:16:26 +0000

Funny (but true) story:

I was blog-surfing a few days ago and came across an article of Pete’s I had just read here – WORD FOR WORD. I thought I was having deja vu..

Looked for a credit or a heads-up at least. Took me a while, but I found a realllly small reference that said “from PeteAbe”. No quotes, no link. I am sure Pete’s words were being passed off as that random blogger’s.

Argh! I can’t remember where I saw it though…
Going to go through my PC history and see if I can come up with a name…

By: West Coast Fan

West Coast Fan — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:39:11 +0000

The links from reputible web sites that fairly use your content and include attribution far outweighs anyone who is stealing your content.

That being said, I think the newspaper industry took too long to figure the web out. And the shills at the AP are only digging the hole deeper with their inane ideas.

The die is cast Pete. I predict within the next 2 years you will be a free agent writer, creating content for multiple outlets (online and offline).

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:35:18 +0000

Yo Pete-

This is probably a stupid thing to say, but I would be willing to pay an annual subscription fee for your blog or newspaper. Just like print. That’s probably where internet content is heading.

Keep up the great work.

-Ed

By: Frank & Beans

Frank & Beans — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:04:08 +0000

Pete,

I don’t know if you remember last year when I asked you if your were offended with some people, pasting word for word your stuff on there “Yankees Blogs” or even on some web sites. I did not get a response then, I think those people should not be allowed to continue.

On any of the 3 blogs that Mike, David, and I operate we do not adverstise or charge we just write our little dumb opinions.

I think your work is so great we would all pay a monthly subscrition to read your stuff. ITS better than 99% of the sites.

We thank you for keeping it real.

By: Mike in CT

Mike in CT — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:00:04 +0000

In my opinion the question is really about how much money people are willing to pay for the content provided. For example lets say Pete makes on average 3 posts a day at 50 words per post. How much is someone willing to spend on 150 words of news. If they were to charge 5 or 10 bucks a month I would expect detailed analysis, essays, I want to know what each player is doing right this minute and what they had for breakfast. But for a 150 words idk how much you could charge, 3 cents? I mean a newspaper is only 75 cents per day.