Space Industry and Business News  
TECH SPACE
NY Times unveils plan to charge readers on the Web

by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) March 17, 2011
The New York Times unveiled plans Thursday to begin charging for full access to its website in a move that will be closely watched by other newspapers looking to boost online revenue.

The Times will offer readers 20 free articles a month at NYTimes.com before they will be asked to sign on to one of three digital subscription plans that cost from $15 to $35 a month.

Arthur Sulzberger, the Times publisher, announced the long-awaited move to a digital subscription model in a letter to readers published at NYTimes.com, the top US newspaper site with more than 30 million unique visitors a month.

Sulzberger said digital subscriptions will begin on Thursday in Canada to "fine-tune the customer experience" and will be extended to the United States and the rest of the world on March 28.

He said home delivery subscribers to the print edition of the Times and the International Herald Tribune, a Paris-based Times co. newspaper, will have full and free access to NYTimes.com.

Unlimited access to NYTimes.com and the newspaper's smartphone application will cost $15 for four weeks while full access to the website and a tablet computer application will cost $20 for four weeks. Full access to NYTimes.com and both smartphone and tablet applications is $35 for four weeks.

Digital subscriptions can be purchased online through NYTimes.com and will be available through Apple's iTunes by June 30.

Sulzberger said the move is a "significant transition" for the Times and "one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform."

Like other US newspapers, the Times has been struggling with declining print advertising revenue, falling circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

The Times abandoned a previous effort to charge online called Times Select in 2007 after a two-year experiment.

The News Corp.-owned Wall Street Journal is currently the only major US newspaper charging readers for unlimited access to its website and other US publishers have been waiting for the Times to unveil its online plan.

Britain's Financial Times also charges for full online access and the managing director of FT.com, Rob Grimshaw, told AFP on Thursday that it has 210,000 digital subscribers, just over half its print circulation.

The Wall Street Journal's basic for WSJ.com is $103 a year while the Financial Times charges $249 a year for a standard FT.com subscription.

Many US newspaper publishers have been reluctant to erect pay walls around their websites out of fear that it will result in a loss of traffic and online advertising revenue.

But Grimshaw said the "metered model" used by the Financial Times and now adopted by The New York Times can work for "quality publishers."

"We feel this is an approach and a model that can work very well for quality publishers, not just in terms of niche content like business and finance news, but also for high-quality general news," he said.

"If it's high-quality content, if it's unique, if it's differentiated, then it's valuable to people and if it's valuable people will be prepared to pay," he said.

"I think you'll see a lot of other publishers adopting similar models over the next few years," Grimshaw said, although he cautioned that "it won't work for everybody."

"There's an awful lot of duplication going on across the marketplace," he said.

Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism at Boston's Northeastern University, said the Times was taking a "smart and nuanced approach to the problem of how do you get heavy users of your online content to pay while continuing to be part of the free conversation that's taking place around your news."

Kennedy said the Times, however, is "not a very good test case for the news business as a whole" because the newspaper is "so unique."

"I really do think there's a huge base of people out there who are willing to pay for the Times and pretty much nothing else," he said.

The Times said the NYTimes.com home page and section fronts will remain free to browse and the Top News section on smartphone and tablet applications will also be free of charge.

Web users who find articles through links from Internet search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles "even if they have reached their monthly reading limit," it said.

There will be a five-article a day limit, however, of free links to articles to readers who visit NYTimes.com from Google.

Times Co. shares gained 0.34 percent on Wall Street to close at $8.89.



Share This Article With Planet Earth
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit
YahooMyWebYahooMyWeb GoogleGoogle FacebookFacebook



Related Links
Space Technology News - Applications and Research



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


TECH SPACE
China Mobile 2010 net profit up 3.9%
Shanghai (AFP) March 16, 2011
China Mobile, the world's biggest mobile operator by subscribers, said Wednesday net profit rose 3.9 percent last year on rapid growth in added services such as music downloads. The company posted a full-year net profit of 119.6 billion yuan ($18.1 billion), compared with 115.1 billion yuan in 2009, according to a statement filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. China Mobile said it ad ... read more







TECH SPACE
Apple could face iPad 2 component shortages

Radiation levels in Japan not harmful: IAEA

Six workers exposed to high radiation at Japan plant

Indonesia screens Japan travellers for radiation

TECH SPACE
Advanced Emulation Accelerates Deployment Of Military Network Technologies

Tactical Communications Group Completes Deployment Of Ground Support Systems

Raytheon Announces Next Generation of ACU Interoperable Communications

InterSKY 4M Provides BLOS Comms For C4I Military Systems

TECH SPACE
Ariane 5 Moves To Final Assembly Building

NASA Unveiling New Rocket Integration Facility At Wallops

Falcon 9 To Launch SES-8 To GTO In 2013

SES gives SpaceX first geostationary satellite launch deal

TECH SPACE
N. Korea rejects Seoul's plea to stop jamming signals

Rayonier's GIS Strengthens Asset Management Capability

Space Team Improves GPS Capability For Warfighters

SSTL's European GNSS Payload Passes Design Review

TECH SPACE
IATA sees sharp slowdown in Japan air traffic

Rolls-Royce forecasts helicopter boom

Flights to Japan cut as foreigners scramble to leave

Air China, Taiwan's EVA cut back Japan flights

TECH SPACE
Silicon Spin Transistors Heat Up And Spins Last Longer

3D Printing Method Advances Electrically Small Antenna Design

Taiwan's UMC to triple stake China chip maker

NIST Electromechanical Circuit Sets Record Beating Microscopic Drum

TECH SPACE
NASA Satellites Show Towering Thunderstorms

NASA Satellite Sees Area Affected By Japan Tsunami

National Flooding Exercise Hones Use Of Satellites To Improve Disaster Mitigation

Mapping Japan's Changed Landscape From Space

TECH SPACE
EPA proposes 1st mercury emissions limits

Russian police search office of outspoken activist

China cleaning up 'jeans capital'

Environmental Impact Of Animal Waste


The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement