Maybe it’s time to bring everybody up to speed on just what is happening with this site and plans for the future. What started as a small insert inside an art site way back in 1996 and gradually grew into what became the barganews site with its huge archives of articles, films, interviews, recordings and images depicting just how this area has been changing over the past decade and a half took a huge step forward just over a year ago after it became obvious that there was something missing in its make up and which could not be supplied just on its own.
That missing element was of course -- the Italian language. As barganews became a permanent fixture at all the local events, it became increasingly obvious that although we were providing a service for the English speaking readers here and across the world it was not so easy for many of the Italian speakers — they could enjoy the images but not so easily the accompanying text.
The huge step forward was the merging of the barganews site with the website for the Il Giornale di Barga — the longest running independent newspaper in the province, which had been serving this area for more than 60 years. On the 16th May 2011 the new joint site renamed barganews.com was officially launched (article here) now with a staff of three full-time journalists, two of which were writing their articles in Italian plus twenty five other correspondents regularly publishing articles from all around the area from Lucca all the way up through Media Valle and into Garfagnana.
Now we are ready to take the next logical step, consolidate and make permanent these changes and make sure that the giornaledibarganews can look forward to a secure future in what are undoubtedly uncertain times.
At the start of the story in 1996 the prevailing view on what was a fledgeling Internet was that “information should be free”. It was a phrase that was written over and over again on forums and bulletin boards right across the net. It became more or less a mantra for what should be the direction for Internet.
Over the next 15 years the world changed and so did that thinking. As newspapers battled against declining circulation figures and as journalists found themselves being laid off in huge numbers they continued to put their news stories free of charge on the net adding to their own decline.
It soon became very obvious that just advertising on webpages was not enough to keep these business systems operative -- something else had to be put into the equation to make this system work.
That something, unpalatable as it was would mean an enormous shift in thinking not just for the journalists, editors and owners of the newspapers but also in their readership.
Yes we are talking about paywalls, pay-per-view or subscriptions where to get full access to the site a small payment is made.
Yes there will still be free blogs and people twittering local news but if you want responsible, reliable journalism it comes at a cost even if that cost is actually quite small.
Giornaledibarganews is just about to offer premium membership to its loyal readers.
There will still be articles which will cost absolutely nothing to read but if you want to know a bit more in-depth information with interviews, videos and of course our by now quite famous photojournalism, then you will only be able to access if you are a premium member.
So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty … how much is this going to cost?
One years premium membership will cost you €52 -- (just one euro a week) Maybe you would like to try to just one month, in which case it will cost you just €10 a month. There will also be the possibility of five euros for a week just one euro a day.
EDIT: something that has come up after watching that video. I said in the video that the website could remain free “if for example the agriturismo and B&Bs paid for their advertising” -- I obviously I meant the businesses apart from the ones that have already supported the site … Up until now the commercial interests in barga have been convinced that the comune has been paying for the site and the comune thinks that commerce has been paying. There have been a couple of very solid and determined backers who have been supporting this site from day one. Their banners are prominently displayed on the front page and I wish the publically thank them now for all their support.
OK, I’m up for that … when’s it gonna start?
Finalmente si parla di “ciccia”.
Le tariffe mi sembrano adeguate, anzi: erano proprio quelle che mi venivano mente quando, prima di addormentarmi, ripensavo alle discussioni fatte su queste pagine (ok, è un momento di crisi…).
Non frequento i social network virtuali (preferisco quelli reali tipo il Marino), ma se potessi metterei un “mi piace” in calce all’articolo di Keane.
Mi associo a Gian Marco: quando si comincia?
Faccio mea culpa ed ammetto la mia ignoranza, d’altronde non si può nascere imparati.
Io e l’inglese purtroppo andiamo d’accordo solo per l’essenza essenziale, per cui il succo l’ho capito ma mi piacerebbe leggere per intero l’articolo senza usare il traduttore di google…
Chiedo troppo?
Questo giornale online, per poter andare avanti, per poter garantire la qualità dei servizi che vi ha offerto in questo suo primo anno di vita, per poter crescere ancora offrendovi servizi da tutta la Valle e tante, ma tante altre innovazioni, ha bisogno di far più forti le sue spalle. Ha bisogno di soldi, detto terra, terra.
https://www.barganews.com/2012/04/27/giornaledibarganews-vuole-crescere-e-diventa-premium-lettera-aperta-a-tutti-i-lettori/
sign me up!
Beauly
Ok, chiaro, è una versione aggiornata dell’articolo di Luca con in più i valori, grossomodo.
Ci starò, sicuramente.
La somma, pur modica, di questi tempi non so se verrà accolta da molti, ma comunque per sostenere l’informazione locale io ci starò.
Since its inception, the Internet has been largely concerned with its own novel frame — the electronic devices and communications software that made it possible — and largely oblivious to content. There was method to that apparent madness: Somebody else produced the content, often at great expense in time and energy as well as hard cash, and the mandarins of the new technology appropriated it without spending a cent.
We’re all familiar with the wonders wrought by the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. But those wonders, many of them costly, were only about the new “frame” for information. They weren’t about what went into the frame. Herein lies the great, destructive paradox of the Internet Age. Consumers who on average spent the equivalent of more than €1,000 annually per household on news and other information sources a decade ago, gradually came to believe that absolutely nothing should be spent on it. Yet the same consumers regularly empty their pockets for the likes of a new iPad or a faster wireless connection.
This paradox took shape just as a related disaster struck the esssential heart of the information industry — by which I mean the nitty-gritty reporting, the unearthing of facts and their relation in stories, without which there is no sound, reliable information. In the same years that consumers convinced themselves that all information gathering should and must be free, the advertisers who had long provided financial support for periodicals discovered that they no longer needed the intermediary of a newspaper or magazine to reach the buying public.
Result? In the brief space of two years, between 2008 and 2010, roughly a third of all reporters lost their posts in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Over a decade, the number of journalists in the field, worldwide, has declined by an estimated 80 percent.
Nowhere has this crisis been more severe or detrimental than at the local and regional level where reporting is not only an accumulation of useful facts, but also the glue that binds communities.
We are among the fortunate few in this regard, for the simple reason that we have had been served by two extraordinary local publications — Giornale di Barga and Barganews, now joined in common cause to document the life of our community.
The new technology offers the means to bring more information to more people than at any prior moment in human history. But at this point, the sad truth is that it delivers less and less of that precious resource to more and more people, with grave potential consequences. What the hard-working reporters behind Giornale di Barganews propose is that Barga take the lead in making the Internet live up to its own promise.
One euro per week? That’s the price of a single coffee every seven days.
Magari qualcosa sta cambiando…
Forse non è un caso se uno dei “mandarini” citati (Steve Jobs) alcuni anni fa ha deciso di cambiare il nome dell’azienda da Apple Computer a semplicemente Apple.
Forse non è soltanto perché ormai vendono più cellulari e apparecchi “post pc” di computer, ma anche e soprattutto perché una grossa entrata riguarda la fornitura di contenuti, tramite l’apple store: un esempio di applicazione in larga scala di alcune delle teorie sulla coda lunga formulate da Chris Anderson nel saggio citato da Luca.
Stando ai dati resi pubblici da Apple a gennaio di quest’anno, in tre mesi (da ottobre a dicembre 2011) iTunes da solo ha fornito introiti per 1,2 miliardi di dollari all’azienda. La vendita di applicazioni sull’App Store ha portato circa 4 miliardi di dollari agli sviluppatori (e il 30% se lo trattiene la Apple): come vorremo chiamare questi sviluppatori se non fornitori indipendenti di contenuti, per quanto si parli di contenuti piuttosto sofisticati?
Un’ultima nota (dolente) riguarda il nostro paese: avete provato a confrontare le modalità di fruizione elaborate dalle nostre case editrici, anche grandi, con ad esempio l’applicazione studiata da Wired per la consultazione della sua rivista?
Fortunamente, nel nostro piccolo, Barganews prima e poi Giornaledibarganews hanno già dimostrato di saper cavalcare la tigre dell’innovazione tecnologica…
The fundamental point, alas, is that in the realm of information, none of these Internet giants generates any original content of the sort I alluded to — fact gathering and news. However ingenious in their mastery of technology, they are vendors and frame-makers, period. Put another way, the original content output of Giornale di Barganews is greater than the combined content generation of Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Google combined. But so far as I know, the combined income of Luca, Maria Elena and Keane is somewhat below the level achieved by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.
Proprio in questo senso mi sembrava interessante l’articolo di Wu Ming 1 sul “pluslavoro” a beneficio di Facebook: ovviamente Marx poneva il problema in termini di rapporti di produzione, ma la categoria mi pareva valesse la pena di esser ripescata anche a proposito della produzione di contenuti da mettere in rete.
La sfida è proprio quella di fare in modo che il lavoro, meglio se meritevole come quello di Luca, Maria Elena e Keane, venga riconosciuto anche su internet: ne conosco tanti di giornalisti regolarmente tesserati all’ordine che collaborano praticamente gratis con i cosiddetti “portali d’informazione”, con la scusa che questi danno comunque un po’ di visibilità.
Non sarà la panacea di tutti i mali, ma la “premium membership” per giornaledibarganews mi sembra un piccolo passo avanti nella direzione giusta.
P.S. Pur essendo con soddisfazione un utente macintosh da circa vent’anni, non credo che la Apple sia un’ente benefico, né che Jobs sia stato un santo dei giorni nostri: volevo soltanto dire che se un capitalista scaltro come lui ha deciso di investire sul commercio di contenuti, magari aveva visto che lì c’era da guadagnarci qualcosa, essendo un territorio ancora da esplorare in molte delle sue possibilità.
In occasione della PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP credo che sia necessario e quanto meno dovuta una serie di jingle pREMIum…
With the sites strong Scottish links it was only a matter of time before someone said: You’re going to “PAY” for that “PAL”.
On a more serious note I was th_nking of opt_ng for the sl_ghtly ch_aper 40 euro yearly opt_on which displays a_l of the art_cle but k__ps you gu_ssing. Don’t worry I am talking P_Walls
Although even the above 40 euro option has been criticised as unfair competition by the hangman’s magazine association.
D__T_
While I fully understand and support what Luca and Keane propose for the future of GDBN I have to correct the impression inadvertently given by Keane in the Video insert. We at Casa Fontana B&B have always paid for advertising on BargaNews and GiornalediBarganews website in order to support the excellent work which Luca and Keane do for Barga.
Ron, I added an EDIT to the article earlier on this morning – EDIT: something that has come up after watching that video. I said in the video that the website could remain free “if for example the agriturismo and B&Bs paid for their advertising” – I obviously I meant the businesses apart from the ones that have already supported the site … Up until now the commercial interests in barga have been convinced that the comune has been paying for the site and the comune thinks that commerce has been paying. There have been a couple of very solid and determined backers who have been supporting this site from day one. Their banners are prominently displayed on the front page and I wish the publically thank them now for all their support.
I’d also like to add a note of response to Ron Gauld. What Casa Fontana grasps — and many other establishments fail to understand — is that local media institutions are often the very best route to potential clients. Anyone who googles “Barga” is all but certain to arrive immediately at the online site you’re reading at this moment. For advertisers, investments in professional, ambitious local publications like Giornale di Barganews are an exercise in sound business sense, as well as responsible community engagement.
What polemic by all!
Put up the Paywall already! Let’s just do it and move past this. Then we can concentrate on the rest of it, on the illustration we will be making.
We have a great ‘frame’. We are standing around looking at and holding it, passing it to one another.. We all agree it is the frame we want…. Now let’s all pitch in, (or continue to pitch in), so that we can fill it with art, news, magic, fun, discovery, illustration, humor, sadness, remembrance, missives, great B&B’s, upside down tomatoes and haircuts!
Let’s go!