It’s been exactly 7 weeks since The Punch Newspaper launched their mobile service called Mobile Punch, a service that provides media consumers access to the full text of the newspaper on their mobile phones which is available to mobile phone subscribers on the three major GSM networks – MTN, Glo and Zain.

When we heard the news, we were excited but it was disappointing to learn that the service was for a fee. The service which was launched on March 16, was to be accessed with a subscription fee of N600 monthly, that is, N20 daily, payable by cash, ATM or Visa cards. In April, Punch announced a slight adjustment in the subscription fee for Mobile Punch which now cost N1,500 per month.

I’m guessing your reaction: Absolutely ludicrous, right? That’s how some of the comments sounded on the Punch article that announced the new price.

Someone said:

This is very strange, what makes punch think people will pay N1.5K monthly for their junk news?? if they cannot do this they should leave it. this service usually cost less than $2 in other country and in most cases(CNN,Fox News,BBC,NBC,CBS,AP,AFP,Reuters,Sky News, ETC) online mobile news is totally free of charge.

Another comment says:

Rubbish! Even at 600 per month,who will subscribe to this kind of useless information we read here? Except gullible and foolish readers will spend their hard-earned naira on these junks. 

Another one said:

Mobile Punch for 1500 naira! in a country where there’s no regular electricity supply! Try opinion polls on this.

But it seems that The Punch’s Executive Director, Azubuike Ishiekwene thinks differently. In a statement, he said:

Our strong initial impressions that consumers across the country are yearning for innovative and deeply personal ways of using media products and services have been confirmed by our experience in the last one month.

Consumers’ response to Mobile Punch has been quite encouraging and the challenge for us, moving forward, is to find ways of making the payment method more convenient for them. Punch is at the threshold of doing just that and will make further announcements in this regard in the days ahead.

Does that imply that Punch didn’t think of the consumers first before putting a subscription fee on Mobile Punch? Would they eventually offer the service for free, just like other global news websites offer mobile services for free?

We like Punch Newspaper, I mean they are cool, particularly because they are technology-savvy and innovative. Punch now has a Twitter page, which means that they are tapping into social media tools, but have not been totally impressive with using Twitter, especially as they don’t add linkbacks to their articles. Can someone teach them how to use Twitter?

While we think that Punch should offer their mobile service for free, we also feel that they should have a clearly defined mobile web strategy and social media policy, if they are to become the leading Nigerian newspaper that integrates Web 2.0 tools and technologies.

What are your thoughts?