You Get What You (Won’t) Pay For
Further to our earlier work on the relative influence of Google and Rupert Murdoch, we put a brief mini-survey on the end of some other YouGov surveys yesterday, and invited respondents to take a few short questions for fun. The topic we wanted to investigate was people’s attitudes to paying for content or social networking services online.
The topline figures do not look good for those who want to introduce charges for these things online (see the relevant news story today here).
Payment structures also made a significant difference to people’s responses, as micropayments proved far more popular than monthly subscriptions. 81% of respondents said they would not pay a £5-per-month subscription to have full access to leading news providers and online services, while only 72% would not pay a 2p-per-use micropayment for the same things.
The relative value of various content and social networking providers was clearly marked. Top of the pile was Google, as 34% of respondents would be most willing to pay for it if they had to pay for one of the services. Next came the BBC, for which 18% would pay if they had to choose one paid-for service. Facebook was singled out by 10%.
Very few respondents chose a newspaper if they had to pay for one provider online: The Times (3%), The Guardian (1%), The Telegraph (2%), and The Sun (1%). The news gets worse for Murdoch, as no one would pay for use of MySpace, which News Corp bought for $580m in 2005.
There was some hope for Murdoch, however. Although only 7% of respondents said that they would be willing to make micropayments to access The Times online, this 7% was drawn from the entire sample (many of whom would not have been Times readers). It depends what proportion of Times readers would be willing to do it as to whether Murdoch’s plan will work.
Android versus iPhone: Brand Fight Goes Global
The Independent are reporting that Motorola are launching their new handset the Droid in the UK on December 7th. The model runs on Google’s Android Operating System, and has won over a number of iPhone fans in the US.
YouGov’s BrandIndex has been the primary tool for tracking the impact that the Droid’s release – especially US Carrier Verizon’s combative iDont ads. We have been delighted that BrandIndex’s scientific brand-measuring data is finally getting the publicity we believe it deserves. AppleInsider, Cell Phone News 2.0, eWeek, and numerous other tech news sites (as far afield as China) have been quick to understand the implication of the BrandIndex figures.
Google vs. Murdoch – Round II.
We also asked people who they think has the more positive (or less negative) influence on people’s lives in Britain today? Google triumphed with 46% preferring its influence, against 15% preferring the influence of Rupert Murdoch and his companies.
Most people seem happy with this arrangement, as 53% said they would rather that Google had more influence, with only 10% backing Murdoch. Perhaps the most interesting result was that 59% thought that in ten years times Google and its companies would be more influential than Mr. Murdoch and his companies (10%).
The Knowledge Gap
There is another dimension to these results, however. We asked the public which companies Google and Murdoch own. Over half the respondents know Murdoch owns BSkyB (58%) and The Sun (54%), but only 25% are aware that he owns The Times.
Even fewer people know about Google’s acquisitions. Only 27% know Google own YouTube, and 13% that it owns Blogger.com (as many as think it owns Facebook, which it does not). Ironically, in spite of Murdoch’s high-profile purchase of MySpace, more than twice as many people think Google owns it.
Google or Murdoch – Who is more influential?
On Monday night we had a YouGovStone Debate on who was most influential: Google or the Murdoch empire? I conducted a poll in advance, which asked the population directly. By nearly two-to-one, people thought Murdoch. But when asked to predict how it would be in 10 years, six-to-one people said Google would be the most influential.
They also much preferred the influence of Google, although (as Brent Hoberman pointed out in the debate), they were probably not thinking too much about the different kinds of influence: Murdoch seeking direct influence through content, Google building up huge potential influence through gathering vast amounts of information, and having the overwhelming power to control (or, as Peter Barron insisted, “organise”) that information.
Our poll showed that people agreed with the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal when he said that Google News hurts online journalism by discouraging brand loyalty – but just as many agreed with Google’s response that its search engine and aggregator helps publishers by driving traffic to them.
The two views are not necessarily contradictory. Finally, people were split on which kind of company would have the most influence in the future, with 39 per cent saying it would be sites that provide their own original content, and 40 per cent saying it would be sites that search and aggregate.
About
-
Recent Comments
PoliticsHome GreenBox- Grotesque that EU should try to dictate UK budget plans - Pearson March 16, 2010
- Downing Street defends Omagh bomb intelligence block March 16, 2010
- Clarke: When we get in we will have full figures to cut deficit March 16, 2010
- Tories launch poster attack on Labour links to Unite March 16, 2010
- Gove says Labour 'are looking back in anger' in Unite attack (full text) March 16, 2010
- Cormack: We have asked for Omagh answers before next Parliament March 16, 2010
- Six MPs' expenses appeals are dismissed March 16, 2010
- Alastair Campbell tells Labour to 'kick large lumps' out of opponents March 16, 2010
- Tories release 'Charlie Whelan' photo to highlight Labour UNITE links March 16, 2010
- Soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment dies of wounds March 16, 2010
