We Already Have a Business Model for News: The Casino
Rupert Murdoch said last week that his newspapers are going to start charging for on-line content. Good luck with that.
Yes, the Wall Street Journal, which is part of his News Corp, has some of its content behind a pay wall. That works because the Journal provides financial information that people have to have – and that they can’t get elsewhere.
In other words, if you’re going to charge for content on the web, you need to have people who need their fix of what you’re selling. You need addicts. The successful media organization in such a world is like an entity that sells drugs or gambling. You want to be a casino.
The casino analogy applies in another way.
Gay Marriage Vote Not a Political One
Wednesday’s decision by the state’s largest gay rights group to wait until 2012 before trying to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage makes perfect political sense. The problem is, for many people, marriage equality is anything but a political issue.
Equality California backed up its announcement with a 32-page report showing why it would be a bad idea to put a gay marriage amendment on a 2010 ballot. The poll numbers haven’t budged since the last election, raising the $40 million to $50 million needed for a successful campaign will take time and political consultants, polled by Equality California, agreed that November 2012, with President Obama running for re-election, will bring out the voters most likely to support a same-sex marriage initiative.
The reaction to that tightly reasoned argument could be seen on the Equality California blog.
L.A.’s Costly Grocery Bill
Originally published in the Los Angeles Business Journal
One of the dumbest things the Los Angeles City Council has done in recent years was to pass the grocery worker retention ordinance.
That was the gem enacted more than 3? years ago that said if a big grocery were sold in Los Angeles, the new owner would have to retain all the workers on the payroll for at least 90 days.
On the face of it, that’s dumb. For the city to presume to tell a private-sector company whom it must employ is not much different from a city cop instructing a home buyer that he couldn’t change the landscaping for 90 days after closing.