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All major newspapers in the world have created web
portals to display the newspaper on the Internet and deliver online news.
Most of them have recently noticed, however, that the online edition
costs a substantial amount of money to maintain whilst
actually generating very little income itself.
.
Äripäev, (www.aripaev.ee)
owned by Bonnier Group, is the leading daily business newspaper in Estonia,
operating a web page delivering online business news. In October 2001,
Äripäev restricted the usage of its web portal only to
the subscribers of the newspaper.
In December 2001, Mobi offered Äripäev a solution for non-subscribers to
access the portal buy buying a single day's access via SMS.
To "buy" access for the day, clients of all Estonian mobile operators
can send an SMS saying "AVA AP password" (Open Äripäev) to a short number
13011. It gives an instant access to the Äripäev website with the client's
chosen password and the phone number as a user name. One ticket
costs 10 EEK, which is slightly less than one paper issue of the
newspaper (15 EEK). The money is automatically added to the client's
phone bill (or debited from a pre-paid card).
Äripäev's SMS-ticket, being first of its kind in Estonia, is gaining popularity
among the readers as the easiest way to "buy" access to the most popular
online business news portal. For the newspaper, it is the first time a
practical solution has been found to charge the readers money
for reading online news.
January 2002
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