Comments on: Links on Twitter: Newsday.com goes behind a paywall, Politico’s owner preps DC local news site, Conde Nast’s admittedly lagging websites http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/links-on-twitter-newsday-com-goes-behind-a-paywall-politicos-owner-preps-dc-local-news-site-conde-nasts-admittedly-lagging-websites/ A collaborative effort to figure out the future of journalism. A project of Harvard University. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:39:00 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Barry Parker http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/links-on-twitter-newsday-com-goes-behind-a-paywall-politicos-owner-preps-dc-local-news-site-conde-nasts-admittedly-lagging-websites/comment-page-1/#comment-63565 Barry Parker Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:04:38 +0000 http://www.niemanlab.org/?p=10358#comment-63565 I am a Long Island resident. Here's why I would not pay for Newsday online: any "original content" is like Channel 5 TV news at 10pm- rapes, murders, and (special emphasis) car accidents. It's spiced up with celebrity and sports coverage, non of which are of interest, and much is available elsewhere. The geniuses who designed the site have made it slow and clunky, overloaded with videos that threaten to crash the computer. I have noted increasingly that they remove the wall and let it be "free" on weekends and sometimes over night. I am not a media scholar (no snickers please) but I would suggest that they are testing exactly how dismal their traffic is when they have the pay wall up, versus offering freely available content. A more sensible model would be to make it free and then work hard to get local businesses advertising (with the same dodgy techniques that their "circulation" department was known for, back in the day). I am a Long Island resident. Here’s why I would not pay for Newsday online: any “original content” is like Channel 5 TV news at 10pm- rapes, murders, and (special emphasis) car accidents. It’s spiced up with celebrity and sports coverage, non of which are of interest, and much is available elsewhere. The geniuses who designed the site have made it slow and clunky, overloaded with videos that threaten to crash the computer.

I have noted increasingly that they remove the wall and let it be “free” on weekends and sometimes over night. I am not a media scholar (no snickers please) but I would suggest that they are testing exactly how dismal their traffic is when they have the pay wall up, versus offering freely available content.

A more sensible model would be to make it free and then work hard to get local businesses advertising (with the same dodgy techniques that their “circulation” department was known for, back in the day).

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