In a world where information flows freely at incalculable rates, iPhone users in Germany may soon find themselves in the position of having to pay to read their favorite newspaper via their iPhone. Axel Springer AG, of BILD-Zeitung, states that user’s of the iPhone who wish to read their newspaper will have to purchase and download a new iPhone app. Those who choose not to will find themselves blocked from the newspaper’s website.
The German newspaper giant chose iPhone users as its first target chiefly because studies have shown that users of the iPhone are more willing to pay for applications for their phone than users of other smart phones. That being said, this new pay-per-use policy will be singling out users of the iPhone only for as long as it takes the company to develop applications for other smart phones on the market.
Today BILD-Zeitung’s website Bild.de is the second most visited news site in Germany with nearly 5.6 million users. It is only narrowly trailing Spiegel Online by 20,000 users per day. Half of all mobile users are accessing content on Bild.de via an iPhone, making the pay-per-use plan far from risk-free. Competing newspapers give their products away for free. There is no charge to access content from BILD.de via a laptop computer, and BILD is repeatedly being censured by the German Press Council.
Even BILD CEO Mathias Dopfner agrees that as long as current conditions persist, and mobile users are able to get their news for free elsewhere, his company (theoretically) will lose.
In addition this new plan makes other European newspapers seem far more iPhone friendly. The Guardian, a UK Newspaper, offers a full featured app for the iPhone and a generic smart phone app. The Financial Times also provides their services free of charge to iPhone users. For users who can not get enough news, there is an iPhone app called World Newspapers, which offers free access to 4000 newspapers across 200 countries.
Given that it seems all to easy for iPhone users, and users of smart phones in general, to get their news for free, one must wonder how Axel Springer’s plan has any chance of success.

Post By Lewis Van Tassel
Lewis is an Education Manager for
Omnistar Email Marketing Software