New York Times paywall

[Ed W]

NYT is establishing another paywall, limiting non-subscribers to no more than 20 articles per month.  While some regard the newspaper as a bastion of liberalism, there's a good reason the paper is one of the best in the country.  It really does cover the world.

I'm not a regular reader, but I do get articles from them now and then.  However, if you do read the NYT regularly, there's a work around.  Someone established a twitter feed that links to articles on the website.  NYT  doesn't block Twitter links, and as I understand it, doing so is somewhat difficult.

Here's a link to the Twitter feed:
http://twitter.com/#!/freeunnamednews

And here's a link to the article on Boing Boing where I found it:
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/23/new-york-times-advan.html   

[custosnox]

the other work around is an ever changing IP address. 

[Conan71]

Paywalls seem counterintuitive considering print is dying out in favor of people getting their news on line.  You can't quantify the number of ad impressions near as well with the print version as you can visitors online, so I'd think more page visits, even from freeloaders, leads to more ad revenue.

[cynical]

That's probably true, but they've been working the ad-supported free route for several years.  They tried a paywall earlier and abandoned the attempt. They have apparently concluded that online ads won't cut it and are going all in with a new model of a premium product at a premium price. As was previously noted, they left some giant loopholes in the model that they are scrambling to close, leading me to wonder if they really thought this thing through.

The real story here is that traditional print media hasn't figured out the optimal way of monetizing what they do, especially in an online environment dominated by the philosophy that "information wants to be free." For his part, Rupert Murdoch says you have to use a paywall. The Times evidently agrees. The Atlantic disagrees and argues that going totally free has increased revenues while decreasing costs.

I think mere ad revenue is only part of the online advantage and possibly not a very significant one. In no other format can a publisher automatically know what articles you're reading. The amount of data on reader interests generated by a major site such as the New York Times has to be staggering. I think it's a treasure trove if they only knew how to leverage it.  But they've had that advantage all along, especially with the registration they have required.

The one advantage to a paywall: fewer insane comments. I'm still hoping the Tulsa World will put one up. Do you suppose G W is a print subscriber?

Paywalls seem counterintuitive considering print is dying out in favor of people getting their news on line.  You can't quantify the number of ad impressions near as well with the print version as you can visitors online, so I'd think more page visits, even from freeloaders, leads to more ad revenue.

[sgrizzle]

Paywalls are very hard to do and since breaking news is on the internet, people will only to pay for two things:
1. Good long-form journalism (in depth stories, interviews, etc)
2. Good packaging of content



While I use things like RSS and literally peruse a couple of hundreds stories a day, I think there is still space in my life for a good magazine/paper/whatever that I just lay back, prop my feet up, and read.

[DolfanBob]

While I use things like RSS and literally peruse a couple of hundreds stories a day, I think there is still space in my life for a good magazine/paper/whatever that I just lay back, prop my feet up, and read.

Wow Sgrizz. You dont still read books too do ya ? 

[Townsend]

While I use things like RSS and literally peruse a couple of hundreds stories a day, I think there is still space in my life for a good magazine/paper/whatever that I just lay back, prop my feet up, and read.

Your toilet reclines?

[Conan71]

Your toilet reclines?

Why has no one invented that? 

[sgrizzle]

Wow Sgrizz. You dont still read books too do ya ? 

Only technical manuals, schematics, etc. Haven't read a fiction book in almost 20 years. Even the audiobooks I listen to are non-fiction.

[sgrizzle]

Why has no one invented that? 

If you're on the toilet that long, you need metamucil, not a better toilet.

[Conan71]

If you're on the toilet that long, you need metamucil, not a better toilet.

It's quiet time for most men.  No one is in a hurry to get in the bathroom after you've been in there for five minutes or longer. 

[Townsend]

Washington Post has joined the paywall world.