The Washington Post has the article Bezos could use Amazon model of customer targeting to reboot the newspaper industry.

The article starts with the following:

Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post promises not just an ownership change for the 135-year-old institution, but a potential transformation of the fusty mechanics of the newspaper business.

It remains to be seen whether the experiences of an Internet behemoth can be successfully applied to a legacy newspaper — and whether Amazon-style customer targeting would be palatable at a news organization.

I was thinking that the author of this article, coming from a traditional newspaper background, was missing the point a little bit.

My whole purpose for reading this article was the thought that Bezos would put into action the idea I posted in my 2010 post, Monetizing Internet Content. Toward then end of The Washington Post article came these paragraphs:

One move that Bezos might take at the outset is to end the paper’s new online subscription program, which limits how many stories readers can access without paying for a subscription, according to Stone, a journalist who has covered Amazon for more than 14 years.

“What is less customer-focused than a pay wall?” he asked. “You’re making it harder for people to read your story at the same time that there’s an abundance of competition.”

Now, I think they are on to something.  Of course, these paragraphs still haven’t contemplated the use of my idea exactly, but they do comprehend what is the problem with paywalls.  I expected Google would be the one to implement my ideas, but I see that Amazon is another company that has all the necessary technology.

It will be exciting to see whether or not The Washington Post company or Amazon will become a major seller of micropayment subscription plans that give the reader access to a wide assortment of articles from many newspapers and magazines.