NYT used to put some of its content behind the paid wall before making it all free. I think it used to be called Times select or something similar. Now there are rumors that they may be going back to the subscription model for some of its content.
Fred Wilson likes the FT.com model better. He recommends monetizing the audience as opposed to the content.
The worst examples of subscription services are those that break the content up into free and paid. It’s as if some content is worth more than other content. I think that is the wrong idea most of the time, and especially in news and news related content.
I like the subscription model the FT has been using for some time now. I may get the exact details wrong but its the idea that’s important anyway. You can visit the ft.com domain something like nine times per month for free. They cookie you and when you stop by the tenth time in a month, they ask you to pay. And many do.
This model recognizes a few fundamental facts about the internet. First, you need to make your content available for search engines and social media linking. That drives as much as half or more of the visits these days. And if you have an ad model at all, and most newspapers do, then you need those visits and that audience.
Its also true that the ‘drive by’ visits will bring new audiences, some of whom will become loyal and ultimately paid audience members.
The other thing I like about the FT’s model is that its an elegant implementation of freemium
. The best freemium models allow anyone to use the service for free and then convert the most serious/frequent/power users to paying customers.
I think he makes an interesting point. FT model monetizes the regular readers and keeps it free for occiasional visitors. It differentiates the users into premium vs free, not the content. This differentiation is objective (based on the number of visits per month) not subjective as in the case of content. So it has somethings going for it. Is it the answer that saves the newspaper industry. Probably not. But it is better than keeping some of the content behind the paid wall.
I still think the right model involves making quality content ubiquitous and charging for convenient access via widgets, devices etc. So differentiate the access points not the audience nor the content. So monetize the where and how, not the who and what.