As we expand as a site, and as more and more of you join up, we thought it only right to start updating you on the changes we make to the site on a month to month basis – starting today, and continuing every month, welcome to the Fingertips Newsletter.

We’re always adding new content and making sure that we provide as much of what you want as possible, so to start things off – let’s have a look at what we’ve recently added.

Rolling Stone needs very little introduction, the pinnacle of cultural and political cool, it’s the ideal antidote to the fast-paced, purely fact-driven approach of many of the 24/7 News Agencies.  Take a step-back, and enjoy the thorough analysis that RS has to offer and the alternate and refreshing position it can present – learn for yourself by selecting it in your Current Affairs, Music, Film, and Culture pages.

Were you one of the people that queued overnight for an iPad?  If so, you’ll love T3.  All the latest technology reviews and news, and sneak peaks at incoming products ahead of time.  A Tech junkie’s dream, and the new feeds are available to select in our Technology page.

Maybe you prefer your news coverage in bite-size chunks? If so, the Daily Beast gives you a unique blend of current affairs ‘cheat sheets’ and well-considered think-pieces.  Unique, and we’re delighted to have it up and running.  New feeds are available in the Current Affairs, Food & Drink, and Lifestyle pages.

All our new content, as well our 4,500 existing feeds, is accessible through the ‘Edit Settings’ menu in the top right hand corner of your screen.  Select which pages you want in your newspaper, choose the categories you want within those pages – then fill it with publishers! Easy.

These are exciting times at Fingertips HQ, with the further extension of our brand on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – search for us on all three and you’ll be welcomed in with open arms. By the end of the month, we’ll also be re-launching our Editorial section, with a new roster of writers commenting, analysing, reviewing, and satirising everything you can think of. We’re almost up to capacity with our writers, but if you think you have something to offer – on whatever subject – then please get in touch with our Editor at seb.stafford-bloor@fingertips.net.

Exciting times, but also sad times, as Brand Manager Carly leaves the Fingertips family. We, and most of Westminster, shall never forget what was unquestionably her finest hour – jumping ahead of the press-pack and snagging an exclusively intimate Peter Mandelson moment on General Election announcement day outside the House of Commons.

The office will doubtless be poorer for her absence, but as we wish Carly good luck in her new career, we say hello to new Editorial Assistant Jack – who promises to be firm but fair with all Editorial contributions!

Until next month, keep on enjoying the site, and it’s brilliant to hear all the positive feedback and that so many of you are enjoying our product.

Online news service Fingertips.net has developed News Search, an invaluable tool for professional and academic research, or simply to keep track of your favourite celebrity or sports team.

Drawing news and content from 400 sources and over 200,000 articles, News Search allows users to generate keyword searches on any topic throughout the news. Smart folders keep tabs on developments surrounding your chosen keywords, delivering news and information from broadsheets to publishers, blogs to columnists – keeping your finger on the pulse of the news.

Fingertips delivers News Search in to the mainstream free of charge, where other media portals and clippings agencies have set prohibitive pricing for similar services.

Ian Hambleton, Fingertips’ CEO, comments on the launch: “News Search is the natural premium product for us to offer – and I am delighted to do so for free. The site brings together news from across the web to provide a truly personal service, we have always wanted to empower our users to refine their news consumption to their most specific demands. News Search does this with simplicity and clarity. The feedback we’ve had from businesses in particular, who trialled the service for us as a way of keeping abreast of their clients, has been resoundingly positive”.

News Search is a free, additional feature built around the core product at the heart of Fingertips – the site delivers the news you choose from the sources you want without spending the time scouring the web. Whether it’s sports headlines from The Times or the latest showbiz gossip from heat, Fingertips.net lets you create your own personalised newspaper from the publications you want, delivering breaking news headlines and features from current affairs, arts & entertainment, business, technology, life & style, and sport.

Fingertips.net now offers fantastic additional blog content throughout the site, including David Cameron, Alistair Campbell and Will Straw’s blogs in the political sphere and Mr & Mrs Smith and Lonely Planet’s Travel Blogs. Alongside the columnist opinion already available, from Jeremy Clarkson and Charlie Brooker to the Daily Mail’s controversial duo Richard Littlejohn and Jan Moir, Fingertips.net streamlines the best thought and views throughout the internet.

To see more on Fingertips please visit www.fingertips.net

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

Fingertips sits in a marketplace alongside other news sites such as NetVibes and Meehive, but delivers a much simpler and friendlier experience that is easy to navigate.

Offering a traditional news format via modern technology, it provides users the ability to cut and paste the news they want to consume in a way that’s both quick and simple to use, delivering an intuitive and fresh service that reflects the personal interest and choice of each user.

As well as news content, Fingertips allows users to network with one another via the News Buddies platform. Sharing comment and discussion, users can talk about the latest journalist opinion or celebrity scandal whilst making their own mark on the news agenda. Tweet a story or add it to your Facebook status, Fingertips keeps you in touch with the news and sharing it with those around you.

For further information please contact:

Fingertips Press Office:

Tony Harding (tony.harding@shinecom.com)

or Pippa Bruce (pippa.bruce@shinecom.com)

Shine Communications Ltd

Tel: 020 7100 7100

‘The future of online news will be paid for, but it won’t be through the use of dogmatic pay wall systems. Newspapers and commercial media businesses need to learn to adapt their business models to offer options and levels of entry for all their users ranging from basic free services to premium news at a premium price.’

The last couple of months have certainly been interesting in the world of online news. With Murdoch and News Corp making angry noises about the effects of search and aggregation, announcements from Google on how they intend to help publishers, the NLA threatening UK aggregators with legal action and then news last week that NewsNow were to drop newspaper links from their subscription services.

At Fingertips, we sit at the heart of the paid content debate. As a news website and aggregator positioned to deliver news and information from an array of credible publishers, we need a healthy online media. Our offering is far weaker without it.

As such we wanted to outline a new perspective and opinion on why paid content can work, but why the ‘Pay Wall’ systems suggested by News Corp and a number of other mainstream newspapers won’t.

Dramatic as it sounds, traditional media newspapers could soon die out. Clearly the advertising based free access model has failed to generate (even in the good times) enough money to fund these publisher websites. So the question really is simple:

‘If we don’t want to lose these newspapers, how can they make more money?’

And yet, because of where we are now, the answer to this question is far less obvious. In the era of free news for all, free information for everyone, how can you just turn back the clock 15 years and expect people to pay for this?

The Advertising Model

The Advertising model has proven unsuccessful in gaining the required revenue for newspapers, but newspapers cannot afford to lose this money. They need traffic to deliver the advertising and by implementing a pay wall system this could disappear overnight.

Here in the UK newspapers also face a much greater challenge than their American equivalents with the hugely popular and credible free BBC service. With more than 3 times more unique users (17,579,000) than its nearest newspaper rival the Mail Online (5,461,000 – source Comscore Oct09) how can other news services expect users to start paying for their content when there is an alternative and well respected free service?

The Problems with Pay Walls

Even in isolation from this issue, the ‘Pay Wall’ has big problems; by charging subscriptions to users for a newspaper’s content, a pay wall system would increase news information piracy on a much greater scale. It only takes one paid subscriber to strip out content and replicate this elsewhere online. We’re already seeing a huge growth in this of activity, so an across-the-board pay wall system is unlikely to slow this down.

At best we’re going to see a host of businesses and content farms cropping up who would seek to benefit from the work of badly paid and often ill researched journalists. All at the expense of credible and well researched news journalists. No one wants a dumming down of the news and without a variety of independent news sources our ability to make democratic and political news choices is in jeopardy.

Is the Future Mobile?

At our recent event on the Future of Online News, Tom Dunmore, Editor of Stuff Magazine , argued that the mobile platform could be the answer because users are both habitualised to pay for content on mobile and, significantly, are less deterred by the payment method. He suggested the mobile payments could fund newspapers.

At Fingertips, we’re not sure the numbers stack up. People are certainly prepared to pay for content on their phones, but do significant enough numbers use their phones to search for news information and would they pay for it, given the other free alternatives?

We do believe mobile can offer a number of lessons and insights though. With hindsight, the first of those being, ‘Don’t offer people something for nothing then expect, them to pay for it later!’. The second is a secure and simplistic payment method whilst offering a perceived better service.

Clearly one of the first big obstacles to paid content is achieving simplicity and security of purchasing. Certainly innovations such as PayPal, Amazon and Google Payments will help and for specific purchases are very popular. We can even see monthly subscription or annual payments working but 24hr access?! Do we really think people in large enough numbers will be prepared to go through this rigmarole.

It’s hard to believe internet service providers, like Sky, Virgin Media and BT aren’t latching on to the success of online mobile purchasing. Certainly micropayments and smaller purchases would be made far simpler if these companies teamed up with publishers to provide a more simplistic ‘add this to my bill’ button.

A Paid Content solution

At Fingertips, we believe newspapers need to adapt and evolve the increasingly popular freemuim model explored by companies throughout the internet by companies like Skype and Spotify. But to succeed in this endeavour they will also need to harness the features of newspapers that made them popular in print.

By offering a basic free news service to users, and then a premium version with various key service improvements, newspapers will benefit from both existing advertising traffic and addition subscription fees.
Read any ‘Economics for idiots’ (Freakanomics / Underground Economist) paperback and the simple ‘coffee house’* analogy is true in all aspects of life. To be successful in the business of selling to consumers the secret is to find out what different people are prepared to pay for a product without having to ask them.

You only need to look at the Movie business as a comparable (music and gaming offer similar alternatives). At various levels consumers are given a choice of payment options ranging from premium ‘first view’ to unpaid and significantly delayed ‘free view’.

So what are the perceived features of online news. that people would be prepared to pay for? The first of which we’d argue is immediacy and ‘Speed of News’. What about offering faster, more up to date, breaking news content on the premium service. As a 30-something professional the option of a slightly delayed free service compared to a reasonable priced up-to- the-minute news service is far less appealing.

Many of us are time poor and rely on the news to keep up to date in the fastest and most organised way possible. Certainly, I don’t really have enough time for extensive search, and enjoy using traditional news and edited content to filter what’s important for me.

Research shows we pick a particular news source or sources based on existing preconceptions of what we are likely to find. ‘Vertical alignment’ leads left and right wing consumers to pick ‘their paper’. Newspapers need to better promote the benefits of an editorial policy and stance. They also need to emphasise the credibility and pre-filtered nature of news editing, compared to the not always truthful information overload provided through individual search.

In this next age of the internet, users are no longer obsessed by the breadth of information available to them, but more concerned by the credibility of content and how easily this can be delivered to them. Newspapers by their very nature help to do this.

In addition users should also be offered exclusive content on a premium service that you wouldn’t get from the basic services. Certainly, when questioned users are happy to pay for more niche and professional industry news and information like the ‘Guardian Media Guide’ or the ‘Times Culture’. It’s for this reason that the Financial Times has a chance of succeeding with it’s ‘Pay Wall’. Does the Times offer enough improved and niche content to users compared to the other broadsheets? Probably not.

Finally, we need to keep payment simple, and available on all platforms – We should dispense with gimmicky payment ideas such as ‘First Click Free’ where users get up to five free clicks per month from a particular publisher. The average user and specifically the slightly older target market for traditional Newspapers doesn’t want to have to understand a payment method, they need to already be in the habit.

The Murdoch approach

It’s difficult to believe that Murdoch, whose Sky TV service has benefitted so greatly from ratcheted options and upgrades to his Satelitte service, can’t see how this would improve his bottom line. But perhaps Sky is the very reason he doesn’t get it.

When Sky launched it was a subscription only service, way ahead of the other TV services. There was no BBC, ITV or alternative digital services. There was simply 4 terrestrial channels and another lesser satellite broadcaster. He then focused on improved content in certain areas. Sport and Football on Sky drove subscriptions probably more than anything else.

The situation with online news media is only slightly different. Newspapers need to match free service competitors with a basic service then drive subscriptions through perceived exclusives and benefits. They need to focus this service on users who want to pay extra to get extra and then be content that the basic service continues to drive advertising revenues.

The effect of paid content on aggregation

Of course the introduction of the premium paid content would have a massive effect on news websites and aggregators such as Fingertips. We would have to adapt too.

Aggregators would need to work with publishers, offering the similar upgrades and services to their users. Potentially offering a basic free service and a premium ‘all in one’ cost for all the publishers premium services. By doing this we would continue to deliver the traffic benefits of aggregation and linking but would also add value to publishers by subscription revenue. In many ways it would legitimise the role of aggregation hopefully helping to ease some of the tensions and issues we’re seeing at the moment.

The simple truth is we can’t survive without a healthy choice of publishers. At Fingertips we stand beside the consumer’s right to choice and diversity, and we are proud to be a part of a media landscape heralded throughout the world for both its variety and quality. We don’t want to see a situation where publishers price themselves out of the market and we find ourselves with a news monopoly.

*Go into any Starbuck’s today and you’ll be offered an array of options all at variously increased prices in no way associated to the additional material cost of provision.

‘Paid Content’ 5 steps to success
1. Do charge users monthly or annual subscription. Make the method universal and across all publishers.
2. Don’t try and charge for the obvious and freely available big news headlines, the football results or the showbiz news.
3. Do charge for niche and exclusive content,
4. Do charge for a faster ‘breaking news’ service.
5. Sell the benefits of an editorial policy and emphasise the credibility and quality of newspaper journalism.

Throughout January, we at Fingertips.net are offering you and your friends the chance to win a pair of PlayStation 3′s and 6 games.

All you have to do is be an existing user (if not you can sign up here http://www.fingertips.net/referral/signup – it’s FREE to do so!) and forward this link on to as many friends as you want asking them to sign up to our free news service.

Everyone that signs up will automatically be entered into the draw on the 31st January 2010 – so the more friends you refer, the greater your chance and your friends’ chances are of winning. – it’s that simple!

http://www.fingertips.net/referral/signup

Thanks
Ian

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Fingertips – The News You Choose

Where where all your favourite stories come together. Whether it’s business headlines from the FT or the latest showbiz gossip from heat, Fingertips let’s you create your own personalised newspaper.

Talking at this event alongside our Commercial Director David Bloom were, Stephen Armstrong (The Sunday Times, Guardian and the New Statesman), Mercedes Bunz (The Guardian) and Tom Dunmore (Stuff Magazine, BBC Radio)

Here’s a short edit from the evening’s discussion…

Fingertips Vs Netvibes

It’s been another huge week for us as the press campaign for Fingertips launched – and what an amazing response! Trust me to pick the wrong week to take a holiday…

Aimed at this stage at the web and technology press, we’ve had some fantastic coverage, with reviews and comment appearing in over 40 news portals, blogs and online forums. Lots of great things being said on Twitter and Facebook so let’s hope it continues!

So I thought I’d post a few highlights up. I hope it’s of interest…

Tech Digest
Pocket-Lint (Website of the day)
ShinyShiny.tv
BackLink (Website of the day)
Hot Mp3.com (Fingertips Vs Netvibes)
Your Story
News Tin
SYS.con
NexGear.com
Tech Blips
Digg
Net Developer’s journal
TechCrunch
IT News
Realwire
TechDigest
Ixplora
Cool Webpage Tools
Tweetme

Fingertips UK Office

We’re pleased to announce the beta version of the website is now live: http://www.fingertips.net

October was a pretty special month for both myself and the Fingertips team. Not least because we were finally able to open our new office in Exmouth Market.

With this in mind I thought it might be appropriate to begin this blog with a quick update on what we’ve been doing, as well as some industry news on the recent ‘paid content’ debate.

In July this year, we were lucky enough to receive a big chunk of Dragon’s Den style investment so have been working hard to recruit a new team, develop the website and appoint our new PR agency Shine Communications (http://www.shinecom.com). Shine also look after Ebay, lastminute.com, Paramount and Vodafone amongst others, so we’re hopefully in good hands!

As part of the new beta launch we’ve also recently introduced a new look and styling as well as a number of tweaks to the interface and settings area. From now until Christmas we’ll be rolling out lots of new features on the website including Search, Archiving, a Forums feature and Twitter and Facebook applications.

In December we’ll also be running a series of events based around the current online  ‘Paid for Content’ debate and ‘The Future of News’. More news to follow on this shortly. I’ll be putting together a short paper in the next few weeks and blogging about it here online, but to begin with this recent article by Jennifer Whitehead at Brand Republic seems to suggest the intended rollout of ‘paid for content’ across the Murdoch press may be delayed:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/BrandRepublicNews/News/964397/Murdoch-reveals-delay-switch-paid-for-content/?DCMP=EMC-DailyNewsBulletin