Alan Rusbridger:
We are earning tens of millions of pounds and it’s increasing at about 100 percent a year at the moment
[...]
Let’s say we’re earning about £40m at the moment in digital revenue.
Peter Kirwan:
Now these are important numbers. Among other things, they suggest that Guardian News & Media (GNM) might yet succeed in building a fully-digital future without any help from paywalls, even if Wapping does meet with success.
Times assistant editor, Tom Whitwell:
Whitwell said that in the 18 months of developing the pay strategy for the Times he had seen an "infinite" number of ideas but that the digital plan was not to become a "news aggregator or a social network".
"What we are trying to say is we are not going to show you all the news, [like] going to Google News and seeing 4,000 articles, we are going to give our take," he said.
Whitwell said that the paper aims to build real, meaningful community relationships between journalists and readers. Part of this strategy will see users having to post under their real names only – there will be no anonymous posting or use of pseudonyms, which Whitwell believes does not build real community.
"The principle is to encourage comment under real names," he said. A colleague added that the Times and Sunday Times would only consider allowing users to post anonymously if they had a real reason to protect their identity.
Gordon Brown on newspaper paywalls:
""I don’t think you are going to be able to put things behind paywalls in the way that people think.
"People will pay for certain things, and should pay for certain things, but I think there’s a whole sort of element of communication that’s got to be free.
"People mind paying for basic news.""
Del.ici.us tags: paywall gordonbrown newspapers onlinenews business