PEJ New Media Index: Charging for Content Elicits Strong Objections among Bloggers

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PEJ New Media Index: Charging for Content Elicits Strong Objections among Bloggers

Social media last week dove into the debate of free versus pay online content. Sparked by Warner Music's plan to favor Web sites that charge users, bloggers answered in force: It's free or we flee. 

Twitter users also joined voices last week-in this case to criticize the privacy settings on Google's new social networking tool, Google Buzz. And Google, for its part, quickly responded.

In the blogosphere, the top subject was the news that Warner Music was no longer going to support free online music streaming services such as Spotify, We7 and Last.fm. From February 8-12, this topic received 19% of the week's links according to the New Media Index produced by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The company decided it would instead focus more on paid music services online, a decision that spurred a flurry of discussion on blogs about online business models. Most of the commentators strongly criticized Warner's plan, saying sites that charge for content just won't work.

On Twitter, Google was the most popular subject last week. More than a third (35%) of the news links were about the search powerhouse.

Read the full report Charging for Content Elicits Strong Objections among Bloggers on the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism Web site.

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