Free is not going to cut it for newspaper companies posting their information online. With a decline in readership of printed newspapers and a weakening in the Internet advertising dollar, newspapers are looking for new ways to maintain and generate revenue for their online websites.

One method being used is where users are hit with a pay wall, a digital mechanism that separates content that one has to pay for from the rest of the content on the internet. One can only gain access to the website content after signing up and paying a fee. The Wall Street Journal switched to this model and has been the only newspaper in the top 25 to add to it circulation this year according to The Business Insider. The New York Times did similar in 2005 when they put their archives under subscription only access.

Unfortunately for both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, this model has not been perfect. Users have learned how to get free access online by Google searching the exact headline of Wall Street Journal headlines thereby bypassing the pay wall. Similarly, people were visiting other websites to find information they would have looked up in The New York Times in order to avoid paying any fees. As a result, in 2007, they discontinued the subscription service fee for articles written after 1987.

But Axel Springer, a German newspaper publishing business, seems to think they have found the solution. They would like publishers to work with Internet companies to create a “one-click marketing place solution” for their online content according to Mr. Keese, Springer’s head of public affairs. In this model, Google and other Internet gateways would display links to newspaper, articles, videos and other content from a variety of media companies and with a single mouse click users can pay for and view its content. Readers could also buy a flat-rate package for different media companies.

In addition, the German newspaper publisher would like Google to pay them and other media companies for the use of their headlines and snippets of articles on Google News. Google does not believe they should have to pay for indexing content and feels that if companies do not want them to show their headlines or snippets, that they can opt to take them out.

In order for the online newspaper industry and the newspaper industry as a whole to survive, a compromise must be made between Internet Search Providers, newspaper publishers and online newspaper viewers.

What do you think?