A Sea Of Red

marketwatch wrote:New York Times to charge for content -- finally
Commentary: The Gray Lady makes a torturous decision

By MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- In the annals of history, perhaps only the D-Day invasion required as much meticulous, torturous planning as the New York Times Co.'s decision to begin charging consumers for its online content.

Of course, the Times being the Times, there is a qualifier: the plan goes into effect in 2011.

The company announced Wednesday that the approach will give free access to a certain number of articles each month and then charge customers after they've gone beyond that number. This will permit the Times to have a second revenue stream and maintain its advertising business. It is also intended to supply enough flexibility to have free and paid content while remaining linked to the Web.

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I think this is the way of the future as more and more print media folds or take a big hit in their subscriptions numbers.

I think some of the big players like the Times can pull this off as they generate so much original quality content. If they don't start charging for it, they'll go the way of the local media outlets for sure. It might happen even if they do start charging, but I don't blame them for it one bit.

If information is your business, the Internet certainly makes profitability challenging.