Subscription models and the Semantic Web

There is a very interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal on Rupert Murdoch's soon-to-be-released subscription model, which will include the ability to subscribe to content that comes from publications other than those owned by Murdoch himself.

This topic came up a few times in my recent panel at Digital Hollywood-- the idea of being able to subscribe to a content "feed", in addition to being able to subscribe to a publication. For example: today I can subscribe to the Wall Street Journal (publication based subscription, on and offline), but sometime soon we will also have the ability to subscribe to topic-based feed, say everything "Insurance Industry" related. Folks who work in the Insurance industry can get all of the WSJ content relating to that industry, plus Barron's and Factiva data (other Murdoch-owned content sources), AND content coming from the Associated Press, NY Times and insurance-industry sources.

It's a melding of Web 3.0 ('semantic web') concepts (which involve breaking content into relevant topics) and innovative subscription models that will be a win-win for users and content providers.

I think Dow Jones is the leader in this area... and has been for some time (look at their current "Pro" subscription service on WSJ.com).

Here's the article:

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100519/rupert-murdoch-still-needs-allies-his-digital-news-crusade/