Farewell, unique users – killed by the paywall. As the paywalls go up, so an era ends.
"Of course we expect to see the numbers of unique users of our websites come down dramatically," says Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's grand vizier at Wapping. "The industry is making the mistake of chasing millions of users by giving the audience more and more content for free – an obsession with traffic that just doesn't pay. " We must wait a few more weeks to see how Murdoch's walls fare as they ring the Times, Sunday Times and the rest. Murdoch's paywalls are 'antithetical to everything' claims Guardian's Rusbridger - advertising news - Campaign. Alan Rusbridger: editor-in-chief of The Guardian Speaking at an event hosted by digital agency Albion, Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, outlined his vision of the role that journalists and newspapers will play in an internet-led future, and took another sideswipe at Murdoch's "dubious" business model.
He said it was important for publishers to change their mindset from an "us versus them" approach, to place the focus on involvement instead of authority.