Customizing content to find the right price for online news

Abstract

Customization of local online news content based upon users' preferences could be a way that newspaper companies would attract more people to their websites. A survey of 384 people done using Amazon M-Turk in May 2015 found that people were more likely to visit and spend more time a customized local news website. However, this did not translate into more people willing to pay more for this customization. About 93 percent of those surveyed said they were paying nothing for online news content. Indeed, research has shown getting people to pay for something they had been getting for free is very difficult. Predictors of who would be willing to pay for a customized news site were whether they were currently subscribing to a paid website and were already heavy customers of news.