iPhase3 App Would Protect Publishers' Digital Property

iPhase3 Corp., Littleton, Colo., is working on a technical solution that would enable publishers to protect their content from aggregators while increasing digital revenue.

Beyond a mere a paywall, iPhase3 is developing a downloadable application to give publishers flexibility in all aspects of digital content distribution. Company CEO and President Barry Gleichenhaus will discuss the project at Inland's 125th annual meeting, Oct. 26.

Gleichenhaus told Inlander Editor Adolfo Mendez that even though The Wall Street Journal makes money from its online publishing, site subscribers may still copy and share its content "once they get past that paywall."

Before being able to access newspaper content, readers would have to download the iPhase3 app just once. The app (for PCs, smartphones, tablets) would allow publishers set pricing as they wish and decide what, if any, content could be copied, e-mailed or printed, as well as how much to share with search engines.

The app also would offer analytics to aid in determining revenue generation per article. To download the app, readers would have to register, supplying information useful in serving relevant ads, according to Gleichenhaus. Because it would "provide a more focused ad model, which matches readers' purchasing interests and advertisers' sales," said Gleichenhaus, the app could "increase the CPM rates that publishers receive."

The company would license the software and take a percentage of revenue it generates at a newspaper. "We're talking about something like 15%, which the publishers we've talked to find much more attractive than what anyone is doing for them now," Gleichenhaus told Mendez, who noted that Apple's iAd arrangement asks for twice that amount.

"We are from outside the [newspaper] industry, so we've taken a fresh view of how to solve this problem," Mendez quotes Gleichenhaus saying. "iTunes revolutionized the music industry, but they weren't in the music business; they were in the PC/hardware business."