Business Models for Digital Archive Access

Dan Gillmor advocates that a keyword-advertising based business model replace subscription, pay per access, or piece-rate business models for newspaper archives. I suppose Dan's logic could be extended to stock photo, and other digital archives. Dan suggests an ad-based business model may yield greater revenues and influence for the media firm. That hypothesis should certainly be tested empirically.

This has me dreaming: what about an effective automated micro-payment system, instead? Content providers would be compensated directly by those that consume their content. A dream system would enable the content creator to specify rights that are then auto negotiated. For example, a content provider might allow a journalist (or other blogger) rights to use their content for no fee. Logic? Such use amounts to promotion for the content. The system could also be configured to reward such promotional use. Perhaps the system could be configured to automatically pay, or otherwise credit, the blogger's account. This isn't too far-fetched. The "karma" counters built into some p2p networks implement a similar scheme.

Versioning offers another alternate business models. Under a versioning strategy, individuals desiring access to the latest & greatest content could pay at a rate higher than those accessing content at a later date.

A keyword advertising based business model is certainly simpler. Yet, an advertising based business model perpetuates the illusion of free content. a business model viable in the long-run?