Scroll predicts that most news sites will earn 40% more profits than display ads.
Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Dewaiwuhao” (ID: dewaiwuhao) .
Source: Nieman Lab, The Verge, ghacks.net, TechCrunch
Author: Sarah Scire, Chaim Gartenberg, Martin Brinkmann, Frederic Lardinois Share, Laura Hazard Owen
Compilation: Tangxin Pavilion
Recently, Mozilla, the parent company of the overseas browser Firefox, and Scroll have launched a paid service for ad-free reading of specific news websites. Although the project is still in the testing stage, many news consumer users who participated in the test have a good opinion of the faster browsing speed and the more concise page effect; not only that, the test project is also doing new things for the news media to generate revenue try.
01 Better reading experience
On March 24th, Firefox parent company Mozilla and Scroll jointly released a test project called “Firefox Better Web”. Users only need to pay a monthly subscription fee of nearly $ 5 to enjoy hundreds of major The ad-free browsing experience of news websites.
Picture Note: Firefox and Scroll jointly launched the “Firefox Better Web” beta version of the paid project to provide users without ads to read specific news websites (source: Firefox)
Mozilla and Scroll have jointly developed an extension plug-in that combines the built-in “tracking protection” feature of Firefox with Scroll’s ad-free service for reading specific news websites. Firefox’s tracking protection function can automatically intercept harmful information and optimize browsing speed. Scroll plans to replace the original page advertising model with an ad-free payment model and promote it to more than 300 cooperation with itNews website.
Legend: Scroll will remove the advertisement from the publisher ’s webpage in exchange for a portion of the user ’s subscription fee (source: Scroll)
In February last year, Mozilla reached a strategic partnership with Scroll and began debugging the plugin on the Firefox browser, inviting some Firefox users to participate in the evaluation. According to feedback from users who participated in the plug-in evaluation early:
1. Advertising distracts their attention and disrupts the smooth online reading experience.
2. Many users choose not to install ad blocking software because they strongly support their favorite news websites, which will adversely affect news publishers.
3. Users support non-profit Mozilla because Firefox puts users first.
Scroll CEO Tony Haile said that the most surprising thing after inviting users to conduct early tests is their emotional feedback. Although he can expect that users will have a good impression of faster and more concise page effects, but a new sense of security that accompanies the general praise of users is unexpected. Because there is no need to load advertisements, Scroll’s loading speed for partner sites is much better than similar sites full of advertisements.
However, providing services only for news sites is bound to give Scroll’s audience a clear direction. Haile also admitted that compared with the general public, Scroll users may belong to a more professional and media-focused group.
The biggest difficulty Scroll is currently facing is how to expand its audience. People are used to browsing the web for free. Although sometimes they may not like the advertisements on the website, some people choose to block ads, but most people will ignore them. However, Haile is optimistic about this, and he believes that a better browsing experience will eventually prevail.
02 A win-win situation for many parties
At present, the project is still in the testing and promotion stage, and it is only available to users in the United States. New registered users can enjoy the price of US $ 2.49 / month for the first six months, and then restore the original price to US $ 4.99 / month. According to its payment rules, 70% of the subscription fee will be distributed to publishers based on the length of time they have browsed news sites without ads.
After the official release of the beta version of “Firefox Better Web” on March 24, Tony Haile stated thatWithin 24 hours of the launch of the project, the number of registered users exceeded the estimated 5 times, and 18.5% of registered users were converted into paying users, surpassing the industry average of similar products.
Scroll wrote in a blog post that news outlets earn an average of $ 30-40 per minute (revenue per thousand views) from viewer subscription fees, and most news sites make a profit from this At least 40% more than display ads.
Note: The ad-free paid service launched by startup Scroll may increase news website revenue by 40% (Source: Firefox)
Joining with Scroll to launch an ad-free paid plug-in project is also one of Mozilla ’s many revenue-generating attempts in recent years, and many of its new products seem to be stunned.
03 Mozilla ’s new product growth is weak
A few days ago, NetMarketShare released the market share data for browsers and operating systems in March 2020. With a market share of 7.19%, Firefox was surpassed by Microsoft Edge (7.59%) for the first time and became the third largest browser in the United States; and Google Chrome is far ahead with a market share of 68.50%.
Mozilla ’s 2018 annual report released in November last year shows that search engine transactions are still the main source of revenue for Mozilla. In 2018, Mozilla changed its previous model of choosing Yahoo as a single search service provider, and instead traded with local search engines in various countries, including Google, Baidu, Yandex, etc., and set them as the local default browsers. The main source of income is Google. In 2017, Mozilla ’s search engine transaction revenue was $ 539 million, but in 2018 it fell to $ 429 million, a decline of more than $ 100 million.
