Tearing Down the Walled Garden…

Posted by Julie Tomlin on 8 June 2006 at 20:23
Tags: Journalism, Online

Speaking at Newswatch 2006 at Bournemouth Media School, Simon Hinde, Head of AOL’s Day News Team, has confirmed that AOL is to “demolish” its walled garden and make its subscription-only news service available to all net users.

At a session called Personalising Content - the Online Opportunities For News, Hinde said that the AOL news in the UK will follow AOL.com, which removed barriers to non-subscribers last year.
AOL.co.uk has been gradually making news available to non-subscribers since then. The move will enable them to cash in on advertising revenues, while premium content will remain available only to subscribers.

Hinde insisted that “news and content is profitable” and spoke of a future in which AOL Google and Yahoo would become identified with certain users - in the the same way that Sun readers and Guardian readers are a recognisable “type”.

As readers become disillusioned with the ‘news with attitude’ approach of newspapers there would be a growing demand for a “less spun versions of the news” said Hinde.

AOL’s desire to develop its own distinctive tone of voice means that its expectations of content providers is also changing said Hinde, who argued that “content is free”. He also claimed that the “one size fits all” approach from content providers would no longer work, he insisted.

Tags: Journalism, Online