Latest development on the paid content front, as news sites around the world consider locking away their content behind paywalls: BBC News (the website) is planning to flag (but not exclude) links that go to paid content.

Here’s the official word from BBC News web editor Steve Herman:

“As the [UK] Times moves into online subscription and others consider the options … there is likely to be a changing landscape with some sites and stories behind paywalls, some not, and some which are in between – a certain number of visits or part of an article free, all depending on the user’s individual circumstances.

“Some said they’d like us also to flag links which require subscription if you follow them.  That is broadly the direction we are going in. We will, where practical, aim to tell you if the link is going to a subscription site. Our automated Newstracker module, for example, should be able to do this and already signals when registration is required.”

What’s of particular interest is that the Beeb is actually planning to link to paid content with a caveat, rather than simply ignoring stories that aren’t freely available.

In the past, the few paid content providers that have existed out there (in particular, the Wall Street Journal) have often been excluded from news aggregators and search engines such as Google because their content hasn’t been readily accessible.

If this new BBC News policy becomes a new standard for online linking, the whole dynamic of paid content will become much more viable: instead of losing public awareness by switching to paid content, news sites will remain linkable (and thus able to benefit from passing mention in other articles) as well as searchable.

What, we wonder, will Google do?

Tags: BBC, new paradigm, online news, paid content