Axate

02/02/2023

We've very pleased to welcome The Keswick Reminder and Cumberland and Westmorland Herald to the Axate network!

The Cumberland and Westmorland Herald was launched in 1860, with The Keswick Reminder publishing its first edition in 1896. For more than a century, these two papers have been reporting from the heart of their communities.

Journalism costs money to produce, and giving their stories away for free is no longer sustainable. So, they've introduced Axate's pay per article and subscription system and are asking for readers' support.

The income this generates will help these two publications to sustain and build on their commitment to quality journalism and help to secure the future of local news in these areas.

Welcome to the Axate family!

The Cumberland & Westmorland Herald is proud to have brought locally-focused news to the people of Eden for more than 160 years.

12/01/2023

A key focus this year for publishers will be retaining existing subscribers and managing churn, predicts the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Trends and Predictions 2023 Report.

New subscribers are offered ‘eye-popping discounts’ or are being given half-price deals or better when renegotiating with customer services to keep those plateauing subscription numbers up.

Now, though, publishers have other options to reduce the cost and impact of churn, and to make customer acquisition more effective.

Axate’s ‘churn rescue’ functions open up new ways to manage and reduce churn without relying on heavy discounting. Offering cancelling subscribers continued access with Axate's Casual Payment technology means they keep reading, and paying, whenever they want.

Not only that, but lapsed subscribers can become a major source of high-propensity customers again. Retargeted with a casual payments offer, they can keep reading and re-enter your subscription funnel, upgrading whenever they're ready with just one click.

Plus, Axate-enabled publishers can target first-time, niche-interest, casual or foreign readers with pay-as-you-read offers, without the necessary commitment of a subscription. Casual payments allow those readers to establish a relationship with your brand on terms that suit their habits and, as their engagement deepens, one-click-upgrade to a subscription later.

Publishers looking for innovative, effective ways to manage churn and increase their paying customer base now have many more options, always under their control. Get in touch at [email protected].

https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/journalism-media-and-technology-trends-and-predictions-2023

This will be a year of heightened concerns about the sustainability of some news media against a backdrop of rampant inflation, and a deep squeeze on household spending. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the increasingly destructive impact of global warming, along with the after-effects of the COVID p...

07/11/2022

Micropayments are back in vogue, writes Jeremy Walters for What’s New in Publishing. They add another revenue stream whilst opening up a publisher’s content to a much wider audience, additionally acting as a funnel for new subscribers.

Some argue that micropayments cannibalise potential subscriptions, but this conflates casual readers with frequent readers. The majority of readers for most publications will never be subscribers; but they could be paying customers, given the option. Only offering subscriptions prevents a huge potential audience from paying to read and enjoying a publication. Plus, if the publication is priced cleverly, subscribing remains an attractive offer and the better option for regular readers. With subscription growth and advertising revenue both under pressure, publishers would benefit from working out how to make potential customers that they already have profitable.

Read more about why micropayment are re-entering the conversation, as well as other takeaways from the :

We’ve just returned from a week in Lisbon attending the Web Summit. We will be posting a number of in-depth features from the event in due course, but below are some key ‘front of mind’ takeaways. Bottom line: Publishers need to rebuild audience trust and micropayments could soon have their da...

19/10/2022

Congratulations to The News Movement on their launch!

We're proud to be partners with TNM, working together to pioneer new ideas, products and monetisation models for the news industry.

Find out more about them on Adweek:

The commercial and editorial strategies of the publisher run counter to industry trends.

06/10/2022

Legacy newspapers are experimenting with new revenue models, writes Kevin Hartnett for Stripe, and Axate's casual payment system is among the most promising approaches.

The future of news is here!

During a period of transition and experimentation, many of the world’s top news brands are using Stripe to reach more readers and earn more revenue.

01/09/2022

When you join the Axate network, you join tens of publishers and thousands of paying readers.

To find out how you can introduce new payment options to your site and make the most of the news media's online network, get in touch at [email protected].

22/08/2022

Have you checked out the latest publication to join the Axate network yet?

pan-African produces positive, high-quality Afro-centric content for Africans in the Diaspora. It has everything from recipes and interviews to travel and lifestyle.

New readers can register and get £1 free credit - that's 5 free articles' worth - to get started. Existing Axate users can use your credit to pay per article or even subscribe monthly.

Here's what we're reading this week:

https://pan-african.net/5-african-superfoods-to-add-to-your-diet-right-now/

Increasing numbers are turning to the continent to find nutrient-packed African superfoods; pan-African takes a closer look at them.

16/08/2022

"Start-up ‘Axate’ to the rescue"

If 57-75% of your audience aren't going to subscribe, with even fewer of them likely to subscribe to multiple sites, then how are publishers expected to make money from their readers?

Helen Dawson thinks Axate could be the answer - by getting a publisher's sizeable, potential audience to pay something, some of the time: https://newfangled.substack.com/p/newfangled-15-saving-journalism-one?s=r&utm_source=twitter

On micropayments & newfangled business models

11/08/2022

We're still here! You can stay up to date with more frequent updates on what we're up to on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Axate is now live on tens of sites with thousands of active users. Since our last update, we've launched several new features alongside our original pay-per-article feature and now offer a full stack of reader revenue tools: day passes, voluntary contributions, subscriptions, newsletter subscriptions and registrations.

Check out who's using Axate here: https://www.axate.com/whos-using-axate

 Who’s Using Axate? You can use your Axate wallet to pay for content on any enabled publisher site. There’s no need to keep logging in or inputting your registration details - you can just keep reading, uninterrupted. With each new site you visit, you will be shown their pricing offer and asked...

31/01/2020

Technology has made almost everything to do with publishing cheaper and easier. No need for printing presses, paper, ink, darkrooms. No need for large centralised offices. Anyone with a laptop and a digital camera can produce what would previously have needed tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment.

But technology has, at the same time, made getting paid harder than ever. There’s no digital equivalent of wandering into the newsagent and leaving a few coins on the counter. The old rule was that if your product was more popular, it would make you more money. That’s not reliably true anymore, and the money you can make from advertising isn’t enough. That’s why so many in media are struggling.

Consumer payment for news is now the exception, not the norm. It mostly takes the form of expensive subscriptions to which only a few people want to commit. We need something else.

That’s what Dominic Young wanted to fix and why he created Axate: to address the strange failure of the internet to provide viable business models for publishing online.

Read Josh Peachey's profile of Axate on Prolific London:
https://www.prolificlondon.co.uk/features/2020/01/my-startup-axate

Axate has been cited as a startup to watch by both Enders Analysis and The Reuters Institute of Journalism and was credited for innovation in the recent Cairncross Review into the sustainability of journalism.

29/11/2019

Here's something about what Axate has been up to, and why subscription is the wrong business model for media

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/11/28/micropayments-news-axates-dominic-young-the-will-the-wallet.

Axate, a digital news micropayment tool founded by media veteran Dominic Young, is looking to monetise casual news readers who won't commit to a subscription to get through a paywall. Young believes that readers must vote with their wallets in pay-per-view to help secure a future for some publishers...

27/08/2019

'Does the deal deliver real, sustainable, value for the publisher, or is just cash-for-content? Is the money enough to justify the deal, bearing in mind that it carries the trust and credibility of their brand with it while placing the content in someone else’s product? Does it enhance or threaten the brand and relationship with consumers?'

Axate CEO Dominic Young discusses why Facebook's latest offer to might still not be enough, on The Drum.

https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/08/27/facebook-calling-publishers-bluff-with-its-news-tab

Dominic Young, founder and chief executive officer of media micropayment firm Axate, discusses whether news brands should

20/08/2019

Exciting news: Axate is up and running on six new titles!

Joining the Axate family are local news media titles Lynn News, Lincolnshire Free Press and Spalding Guardian, Grantham Journal, Rutland & Stamford Mercury, Fenland Citizenn and Newark Advertiser.

We're proud to support local journalism in finding a sustainable business model that works for them, and enables them to continue doing the necessary and widely valued work they do.

If you haven't had the opportunity to try out Axate's seamless payment system yet - here's your chance!

https://pressgazette.co.uk/six-iliffe-media-websites-go-behind-partial-paywall-in-experiment-to-help-sustain-local-news/

Six regional news websites have been put under a partial paywall in the biggest such “experiment” by one publisher with payment platform Axate to date.

14/08/2019

Axate CEO Dominic Young addresses the most pressing issue facing publishing today: how to make money.

Targeted advertising can feel intrusive to readers. Being tracked, profiled and sold a product (often before you even know you want to buy it) feels more than a little spooky.

It's an unusual and unnecessarily complicated way to monetise content, and other businesses don’t think like that.

For publishers, the principal source of future revenue has to be from their content and their consumers, not their advertisers. To do that, they need to make a great product that their users want and enjoy, and to charge the right price, in the right way.

Subscriptions are too expensive, too committed and only work for some, relatively elite, brands. But if there were options between the extremes of free and subscription, it might be easier to just charge people casually for your product.

A casual payment system needs to work for publishers and for readers: a common infrastructure that enables publishers' network to grow, and provides readers with an effortless way to pay.

That piece of missing infrastructure is what we've been working on here at Axate - and guess what? It's working.

Read more on What's New in Publishing:

https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/the-problem-with-modern-publishing-making-money/

According to a recent article, the team at LadBible were wrestling with the problem of modern publishing – making money. So what did they do? …[We] introduced a first-party data management platform that can monitor who has clicked through on an article, when and from what source. It also stores ...

25/07/2019

The Axate network just keeps growing!

We're very excited to announce that we're now live on newburytoday, the site bringing you , & for West Berkshire.

Their editor, Andy Murrill, has explained why they've made the decision to team up with Axate to charge for some premium content on their site.

Newbury Today is an independent local news outlet who believe passionately in supporting their community and holding power to account. While moving online has enabled them to reach more people than ever before, giving stories away for free online is simply no longer a sustainable business model.

That's why they've teamed up with Axate. While most articles will remain free on their site, they'll be using Axate to charge a small fee for premium articles. This decision will help them to strengthen their ability to continue to provide high-quality journalism to readers across the area on any platform - hopefully for many years to come.

You can read the full article here:
https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/27818/what-is-axate-and-why-are-we-introducing-it.ht

newburytoday charging a small fee for some stories

17/07/2019

The Axate network is growing!

We're very pleased to announce that we've teamed up with SciFiNow magazine, so you'll now be able to use your Axate wallet to access their premium online content. And if you haven't got an Agate wallet yet, why not sign up and try it out today?

https://www.scifinow.co.uk/

15/07/2019

'Just imagine if all or could multiply their income from one small switch in market strategy.'

Tony Henderson, a founding shareholder of Axate, discusses the limits of Spotify and Apple News' business models - and why simply selling your product for money, on an item to item basis, promises a more profitable and sustainable future for the industry.

https://medium.com//the-burning-issue-famous-for-15-minutes-then-what-e38e95e1c73b

The news last week that Spotify is to restrict artists from loading their content directly into the Spotify platform went somewhat…

09/07/2019