I'm sharing an interesting comparison of two recent influential pieces on the issue of pay walls for newspaper websites -- one for it, and one that argues instead for new products and revenue sources.

Compare the words used by Umair Haque in his "Nichepaper Manifesto" (which calls for news organizations to invent something new instead of trying to charge for the old product) to the words of David Simon's "Build the Wall" article in CJR (which calls for the New York Times and the Washington Post to lead the way in building pay walls around traditional newspaper stories posted online).

The big difference? Haque is looking forward for solutions, while Simon is looking backward at protecting old power centers of print.

The words in the Nichepaper Manifesto: develop, strive, knowledge, different, new, better, innovators, 21st century, readers.


The words that define David Simon's backward-looking screed: Times, Post, product, papers, paid, revenue, industry, wall, advertising