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COMMENTARY | Noah Brier

Weekend Times

November 16, 2009 | RSS | EMAIL | PRINT | 1 COMMENTS

Two articles worth highlighting from the Times this weekend. First, a look at cell phone pricing that's surprisingly full of interesting points. For instance, when Sprint offered the Fair and Flexible plan in 2004 ("300 minutes for $35, and each additional block of 50 minutes for $2.50") it would seem like the sort of thing otherwise overcharged mobile customers would jump on. But they didn't ... Because they didn't like that their bill fluctuated greatly month to month. How crazy is that? Convenience, in this case, was likely worth $20 a month to folks (and calling it convenience is a stretch, after all, autopay is an option).

The second article was a look at Bloomberg (the company, not the dude). They're especially interesting to me because they're a media company who is booming while everyone else is struggling/dying. It speaks to something I think will be increasingly important in the media world in the coming years: Journalism as a non-core business. They didn't buy BusinessWeek to make loads of cash off it (they operate their current magazine at a loss), rather they bought it to extend the brand so that they can build other services that people will actually pay for. Seems to be working so far (the strategy, not the BusinessWeek thing, which just happened).

Tags: business, media, mobile


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COMMENTS

1Alan Wolk

I wonder if Bloomberg is a good example though: the things they sell-- business stats, stock market stats in particular-- have a high value to the people paying for them precisely because they need that information at the very moment it becomes available and it's of little value to them even five minutes later.

Not sure the same sort of argument could be made about other sorts of news, at least not with that amount of volume. The value to other types of news seems to be analysis, which would require a different business model.

Still, there are likely things to be learned from Bloomberg, as in the example you site of using one money-losing publication to create demand for higher-priced services.

November 16, 2009