p2pnet news | Freedom:- It looks as though the New York Times has finally partially (at least) grasped three truths essential not only for its online survival, but offline as well.

They are:

• You can’t compete with free
• The corporate media are no longer the only games in town
• People won’t pay for vested interest stories posted by the corporate lamescream press —– not when there’s a wealth of free, unspun and detailed material readily available online.

The NYT is ending its paid TimesSelect Web service and will now make most of its Web site available for free, “in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue,” says Reuters.

TimesSelect has been looking for $8 a month, or $50 a year, in return for which subscribers get to read articles by columnists such as Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman, says the story.

However, it still has something to learn.

The impetus comes not from altruism, or the realisation it’s smart to make friends with the Unwashed Masses by giving them good reasons to visit the site —- reasons which would ultimately guarantee their grateful loyalty in other areas.

Rather, “We now believe by opening up all our content and unleashing what will be millions and millions of new documents, combined with phenomenal growth, that that will create a revenue stream that will more than exceed the subscription revenue,” Reuters has Vivian Schiller, the site’s VP and general manager, saying.

The “trademark orange ‘T’s’ marking premium articles will begin disappearing Tuesday night, says the story, also stating:

“The move is an acknowledgment by The Times that making Web site visitors pay for content would not bring in as much money as making it available for free and supporting it with advertising.”

“Figuring out how to increase online revenue is crucial to the Times and other US newspaper publishers, which are struggling with a drop in advertising sales and paying subscribers as more readers move online,” Reuters continues, failing to mention what’s perhaps a more important reason: that the mainstream media are now being forced to compete with ever increasing numbers of excellent citizen journalists wholly motivated by a desire to inform.

Not only but also, “The longer-term problem for publishers like the Times is that they must find ways to present content online rather than just transferring stories and pictures from the newspaper,” says Reuters.

Will the Wall Street Journal, and the like, follow suit?

With zillionaire Rupert Murdoch running it, interesting things are liable to happen at the WSJ, and that could easily include a move similar to the NYT’s.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

.Slashdot it!

Also See:
Reuters – New York Times to end paid Internet service, September 17, 2007
zillionaire Rupert Murdoch – Murdoch buys the WSJ, August 1, 2003

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